The religious poems of Richard Crashaw

fAW'S RELIGIOUS POEMS'

3
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Catbolic Uibrarp— 10

THE RELIGIOUS POEMS

OF
RICHARD CRASHAW

ROEHAMPTON '.
PRINTED BY JOHK GRIFFIN.

THE RELIGIOUS POEMS

OF

RICHARD CRASHAW

WITH AN INTRODUCTORY STUDY

BY

R. A. ERIC SHEPHERD

LONDON :

THE MANRESA PRESS, ROEHAMPTON, S.W,
B. HERDER, 68, GREAT RUSSELL STREET, W.C.

1914

IWbil ©bstat:

S. GEORGIUS KIERAN HYLAND, S.T.D.,

CENSOR DEPUTATUS

Imprimatur :

•fr PETRUS EPUS SOUTHWARC.

MAY 2 0 195&

CONTENTS.

PAGE

INTRODUCTION I

CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

TO THE COUNTESS OF DENBIGH . . . . . 2& •*//

TO THE NAME OF JESUS 30

IN THE HOLY NATIVITY 3&

NEW YEAR'S DAY 42

IN THE GLORIOUS EPIPHANY 44-

TO THE QUEEN'S MAJESTY 54,

THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY CROSS . . . . 55

UPON THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 67

VEXILLA REGIS 67

TO OUR BLESSED LORD 69

CHARITUS NIMIA 69

SANCTA MARIA DOLORUM 72

UPON THE BLEEDING CRUCIFIX 76

UPON THE CROWN OF THORNS 78

UPON THE BODY OF OUR BLESSED LORD . . . 79

THE HYMN OF ST. THOMAS 79

LAUDA SION SALVATOREM 8 I

DIES IRJE 85,

O GLORIOSA DOMINA 88-

Vlll CONTENTS

PAGE

IN THE GLORIOUS ASSUMPTION 89

SAINT MARY MAGDALENE 92

HYMN TO SAINT TERESA IOO

AN APOLOGY FOR THE FOREGOING . . . . IO6

THE FLAMING HEART IO/

A SONG OF DIVINE LOVE Ill

PRAYER 112

TO THE SAME PARTY I I 6

ALEXIAS I 1 8

A RELIGIOUS HOUSE 122

AN EPITAPH 124

DEATH'S LECTURE 125

TEMPERANCE 126

HOPE 128

ANSWER FOR HOPE 129

FROM " STEPS TO THE TEMPLE "

UPON EASTER DAY 132

ON A TREATISE OF CHARITY . . . . . .133

FROM " POSTHUMOUS POEMS "

•QUAERIT JESUM SUUM MARIA 135

INTRODUCTION.

I. BIOGRAPHICAL.

" POET and Saint " is how Cowley, Crashaw's ele-
gist, salutes the dead poet; and in this case there is
more truth in the words than in many similar com-
pliments. That Crashaw was a poet is too obvious to
need comment : that he was a saint is true in the
broader sense that Crashaw's was a most holy, humble
and genuine soul. Born in 1613 and dying in 1649,
the poet lived but thirty-six years, most of which were
spent in quiet and reflective retirement as a Fellow
at Cambridge. Into the last six years of his life is
crowded really all the incident that it contains; and
during these years were written, following upon the
great crisis of the poet's life, almost all the poems
with which in this book we are concerned.

Richard Crashaw was born in London, where his
father, William Crashaw, was a Puritan preacher of
some note. About the poet's father not much is
known beyond that he cherished a quite special grudge
against the Pope, and inveighed against his son's
future " chief shepherd " to the extent of some dozen
volumes. He seems, however, to have been a man
of some education, for we hear of him addressing some
Latin verses to his son's tutor, while the poet was
at school. What is most important to know about
him, we do know, namely that he was a good father;
and had his son's present welfare at heart no less
than the Pipe's future.

About the poet's mother, not even the efforts of
the most indomitable editors have availed to discover
anything beyond that she died in her son's infancy,
and was replaced by William Crashaw a few years
later. His second wife appears, however, by no means

B

2 INTRODUCTION

to have followed in the fairy-tale tradition, but to have
been a kind stepmother to her husband's child.

Richard Crashaw was sent to school at Charter-
house, but of his progress at that institution nothing
is known. In 1631, being by this time eighteen
years of age, the poet was entered at Pembroke Col-
lege, Cambridge; but did not matriculate until some
little time later, owing to a dearth of scholarships or
some such cause. The poet, in the time-honoured
manner of poets, was not well-off; and his father,
by this time dead, had not apparently been able to
leave him provided for. At Pembroke College, then,
Crashaw passed his undergraduate days. Of them
little is known, but we may infer that he was deeply
studious.

It may be as well to mention at this point that
the Cambridge of Crashaw's day was largely under
the influence of Laud's reaction, which was at that
time what the modern " Catholic " movement in the
Church of England is to-day. The Reformation had
by this time fulfilled itself in the Puritans. The strong
national impulse lent to English Protestantism by the
threat of invasion from without had subsided with
the removal of that danger. Thus, those Englishmen,
who, while caring for religion, yet lacked the fiery
dogmatism of the Puritan, had leisure to look around
them and wonder where they stood. To meet this
need came Laud with his doctrine of a semi-divine
king to replace the authority of the Pope, and his
attempt to restore to the English Church some part at
least of Catholic practice. Laud's attempt, in fact,
was the first of a long series of efforts on the part of
English Churchmen to give basis and theory to that
compromise hastily jobbed together at the accession
of Queen Elizabeth. For expediency cannot justify
for ever: and at the Universities at least some
" theory " was welcome.

Whether Puritanism can ever have had any influence
on Crashaw, it is not possible to say. It is most

INTRODUCTION 3

probable that it never had. And it is certain that at
Cambridge he speedily became imbued with the no-
tions prevalent there. A thousand reasons for this are
at once apparent. The influence of his tutor, John
Tournay, a man whom Crashaw admired, and a clergy-
man in decided reaction against Puritan theology, the
religious tone of the College and University generally,
and a host of contributory reasons, all acted upon him
to the expulsion of whatever Puritan bias he may have
had. The real reason, however, is simply Crashaw's
own temperament, the nature of his own mind.

We have all heard of " temperamental " converts to
Rome — we hear them mentioned with gentle rebuke in
non-Catholic circles — people on whom the incense used
in Catholic ritual is supposed to have worked to the
stifling of their intellect and the drugging of their con-
science. This is one explanation, at least — and the
phenomenon certainly does exist. There are un-
doubtedly people who, whatever their religious up-
bringing, have only got to catch a stray glimpse of
Catholicism at once to embrace it. The mental pro-
cess is not of time but of eternity. It may be likened
to love at first sight. Such a soul, moreover, was
Crashaw's; and in this fact lies the whole and entire
reason of his immediate defection at Cambridge from
the theology which presumably he was brought up
to hold. There are cathedrals in Holland whose in-
terior the Puritans are said to have whitewashed so
as to conceal the frescos with which the walls are
decorated, but with the lapse of time the whitewash
has grown thin and now an-d then the warm hues of
the fresco have glimmered through. This is what had
happened at Cambridge. The Puritan whitewash had
grown thin, and Crashaw's eye was able to perceive
the glimmering of some brighter thing underneath,
though he could not yet know fully that it was so.

Crashaw was one of those people whom we should
call "naturally good." The "Thou shall not" of
religion did not therefore greatly concern him, for he

4 INTRODUCTION

lived above the mere letter of the law. It was the
" // thou wouldst then be perfect " that awakened
his soul; and to this rarer piety Protestantism has
ever had too little to say. The Catholic Church, on the
other hand, is generally admitted to be unique for
her dealing with saints and the higher ^earnings of
piety; and this she is enabled to do because she is
" Catholic " and has made provision for every variety
of soul with whose salvation she may be charged.

As it is with Crashaw's religious poems that this
book is dealing, so it is with his religious develop-
ment that I shall chiefly concern myself in this account
of his life. For this reason I have adverted to the re-
ligious atmosphere of Crashaw's Cambridge; and for
this reason I have attempted to describe his own re-
ligious temperament as I conceive it to have been.
What was wanting, one would imagine, to a great
many men of Crashaw's date was some opportunity of
knowing at first hand the Catholic Church. There was
assuredly at that time, as there is to-day, a tendency
towards Catholicism in many quarters. There was
no apathy towards religion on the part of thinking
men. On the contrary it was pre-eminently the first
consideration of their minds. What was needed was
opportunity ; and to Crashaw at least, as we are shortly
to see, opportunity was given, nor was he slow in pro-
fiting by it.

In 1636 Crashaw became a Fellow of Peterhouse,
and settled down to the life of a senior member of
the older Universities. He was a fine scholar; and
his linguistic ability would appear to have been pro-
digious, for in addition to the classical languages he
is said to have read fluently French, Italian, and
Spanish — the last two of which had, in different ways,
great influence upon him — the former on his literary
style, the latter on his soul. During his Cambridge
years he was naturally producing poetry, and his
earlier works, both sacred and secular, belong to this
period of his life, and were afterwards collected and

INTRODUCTION 5

published under the titles Delights of the Muses
and Epigrammata Sacra. He had, too, many con-
genial friends (as who has not at the University?)
notably John Beaumont (also a Fellow at Peterhouse)
and later on the poet Cowley who came up in all
the freshness and sparkle of his somewhat shallow and
unlovable genius from Westminster to Trinity while
Crashaw was in his early years as a don at Peterhouse,
For seven quiet years Crashaw was a Fellow of Peter-
house, filling his time with congenial occupation, the
exercise of his talents, and the society of his friends.
We hear of him as delighting in the decoration of
a new church, as warmly interested in the attempt
of a friend to revive the religious life in the Anglican
Communion (for all the world like to-day) at the vil-
lage of Little Gidding. Most likely Crashaw looked
forward to ending his life at Cambridge; and pro-
bably he would have done so, had not circumstances,
beneath whose roughness and rigour lay concealed io
Crashaw's case the grace of God, routed him out from
those quiet groves, and thrown him upon the world,
there to experience the poet's proverbial lot of hard-
ship and obscurity, but there also to make (which he
might never have done had he remained secure at Cam-
bridge) the great discovery of his life, the discovery
that the Catholic Faith is not only lovely and desirable,
but also true.

But during the seven years of Crashaw's residence
at Cambridge as a senior member of that University,
a crisis in the history of England was slowly but surely
maturing; and watchers of the political skies must
have begun to feel a little uneasy about the future,
especially if they conducted their observations from
any snug position on earth. The two elements in
English society at that date were daily drifting further
and further apart. The Puritans, who were composed
chiefly of the yeoman or what we should call
middle-class element, could not be brought to stomach
the king's spiritual elevation, particularly when they

6 INTRODUCTION

found both the king himself and his ministers pre-
pared to make an anything but spiritual use of this
new and highly convenient doctrine — which was of
course to be expected. Having got rid of the Pope,
the pugnacity of the Puritans turned itself upon these
new aspirants — and not without justification. It can-
not be claimed that either the King or his advisers
made a wise use of the new powers they sought to
arrogate to themselves. One is tempted to suppose
that they cannot have been aware that it was a crater
upon which they had elected to picnic, though there
was plenty of smoke and a pungent odour of sulphur
rising to warn them. However, quos Deus vult per-
dere, prius dementat! — and it was not very long before
the volcano erupted, as volcanoes will, blowing off
the heads of Laud and Strafford, nor even respecting
that anointed one of his semi-divine majesty King
Charles I.

In 1643 the Parliamentary authorities swooped
down on Cambridge and administered the Covenant,
like a nauseous black draught, to the reluctant mem-
bers of that University. The chapels and other evi-
dences of Laud's influence we may well imagine their
zeal made short work of. Most of the Fellows and
masters swallowed the dose perforce (their wind-pipes
were roughly clutched if they did not — figuratively that
is, for ejection was the only alternative) but some
few were resolute in declining it, and fled from Cam-
bridge to seek either retirement abroad or the King's
standard at Oxford. Amongst the latter were num-
bered Cowley and Crashaw. They gave up their
positions and joined the King where he mustered his
legions in St. Giles' (perhaps) and held his court in
Christ Church Hall.

At this point for the ensuing three years — from
1643 to 1646 — Crashaw disappears. How long he
stayed at Oxford is unknown — probably not long, for
there was at Oxford in that time little enough pro-
vision, one would imagine, even in a material sense, for

INTRODUCTION 7

any besides soldiers. Crashaw, moreover, the mild
don and studious poet, can hardly have made a very
competent man-at-arms. Be this as it may, he dis-
appears and nothing certain is known about him till
the year 1646, when he was discovered by Cowley in
Paris in a state of great penury. How long he had1
been in Paris is unknown; nor is it recorded how
he employed his time in this interval. My own theory
(and I give it for what it is worth) is that one thing
he did during this time, probably in Paris, was to be-
come acquainted with, and thoroughly to devour, the
writings of the Counter-Reformation School of Spanish
Mystics.

His poems seem to bear witness that he had known
previously of St. Teresa; and it is probable that he
had read some part at least of these mystical writings
while still at Cambridge. I think it likely, however,
that he came to them really at this time in his life;
and their influence upon him was certainly enormous.
There is commonly some one agency (trivial often in
itself) in a conversion which precipitates matters, and
quickens the slow consideration of many years into
swift resolution. In Crashaw 's conversion I am in-
clined to assign the Spanish mystical writings as the
determining factor.

However, in the year 1646, Cowley, who appears to
have combined with his poetic genius a happy knack
of looking after himself, arrived in Paris as Secretary
to my Lord Jermyn, then told off to attend the
Catholic Queen of Charles I., Henrietta Maria, in her
retirement at Paris. Here the fortunate poet dis-
covered the unfortunate one; and, while feeling a
slight pitying contempt for this shiftless brother, be-
friended him, and gained him an audience with the
Queen. Be it noted particularly, that Crashaw, at
the time of his discovery by Cowley in Paris, was
already a Catholic. From the obscurity of his unre-
corded years this great fact emerges — Crashaw had at
length found his destination, and was placed just where
his poetical genius might flourish.

8 INTRODUCTION

As might have been expected, Crashaw was a suc-
cess at the exiled court of Henrietta Maria. His own
pleasing personality, combined with his religion and
extraordinary genius, won the Queen to be his friend
in a very short time. But, alas, the poor lady had
in her gift but few favours to bestow. She was an
exile. Her lord, fighting for his existence in the land
over which he should have reigned, could afford her
little indeed for largesse to poets, however sublime
their genius. Thus the Queen could give to the poet
little but her favour and the hospitality of her Court ;
and, though later she furnished him with the intro-
duction and probably the purse which took him to
Rome, that was the utmost she could do for him.
In the meantime, however, Crashaw lived at Paris,
frequenting the Court and writing most of the poems
which are to be included in this volume.

There is little more to say of the poet. His short
life was soon to close. After some time spent in
Paris, he started for Rome, where his introduction
from the Queen secured him the position of Secretary
to a certain Cardinal Palotta, in whose service he re-
mained almost until his death. It is said that the
Cardinal himself sent him away, though sincerely at-
tached to fiim, because Crashaw's bold and outspoken
criticism of what went on amongst the servants and
hangers-on of the Cardinal's court brought down upon
him the deadly hate of those unscrupulous persons.
Whether this be so one cannot say, but in 1649
Crashaw received a benefice at Loretto owing to the
Cardinal's recommendation, and there, after holding
the office for but three months, he fell sick and died.
His gentle and lovable nature, his harmless beneficent
life, and his intense mounting flame of faith, are well
summed up in the motto which he himself prefixes
to his volume of poems, Steps to the Temple:

" Live, Jesus, live, and W it be
My life to die for love of Thee."

INTRODUCTION 9

Thus lived and died Richard Crashaw, one of the
gentlest and most sublime of Catholic poets.

II. PANEGYRICAL.

What is Religious Poetry? The question is a
harder one to tackle than appears at first sight.
Ninety-nine people out of a hundred would reply at
once that religious poetry is poetry written in a reli-
gious spirit about religious subjects. On this defini-
tion Crashaw's is undoubtedly religious poetry.

Francis Thompson, however, in his oddly grumbling
essay on Crashaw, demurs. To him Crashaw's is
not religious poetry, or rather as he himself says, " It
is not what people are accustomed to understand by
religious verse." Thompson further maintains that
Crashaw's is " essentially a secular genius " — he is
allured to religious themes " not by the religious les-
sons, but the poetical grandeur and beauty of the sub-
ject " — " he sings the stable at Bethlehem, but he does
not sing its lessons of humility, poverty, self-abnega-
tion." In other words, and stated as concisely as pos-
sible, Thompson is disappointed with Crashaw because
Crashaw seems wholly wrapt up and enthralled with
the idea of the actual occurrence of the thing, seems
entirely content with the very picture of the event
as it was, and in no wise concerns himself with the
application of the lesson that it contains. Crashaw
says, " Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee:
Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the
fruit of thy womb, Jesus ! " But he does not say,
" Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now
and at the hour of our death." In other words, he
hymns, but does not preach; hails, but does not ex-
pound. Therefore, says Thompson, he is not a reli-
gious poet.

For my part I am not concerned at this time to
enter into a long discussion as to what religious poetry
in its essence may be. I am simply concerned with

10 INTRODUCTION

Crashaw as a religious poet. It is probable that
Thompson is right, and that Crashaw's poetry is " not
what people are accustomed to understand " by re-
ligious poetry, just as a hymn is not what people are
accustomed to understand by a homily. Nevertheless
a hymn may be as inspiring as any homily. But there
is one little simple biographical detail about Crashaw
that entirely explains the hymning quality in his
poetry, that settles once and for all why Crashaw is
not what "people are accustomed to understand, etc."
This little fact, so simple yet overlooked by Thompson,
is the key to any sympathetic understanding of Cra-
shaw's poetry, and it is the corner-stone to this ap-
preciation. It is simply this, Crashaw was a con-
vert.

The psychology of the intense convert is a study
so interesting that one might dilate on it for hours on
end. We must all have met converts, so intensely
and wholly taken up with the glory and magnitude of
their discovery that their conversation grows weari-
some in its insistence on one theme. It is not the
lessons that the Church teaches that they commonly
speak of : it is the Church herself, the fair view of her
walls as one approaches her, the mere spectacle of
her from all her manifold sides, the very joy of being
part of her, one with her — these are the things that
they repeat again and again, and must repeat for the
very relief of doing so. Their joy is uncontrollable.
They have just learnt : they have just broken out into
the streets with the glad cry, " Eureka " on their lips.
The Catholic Faith is true I We know it 1 How
do you know it? We do not know how we know
it ! The Faith is a gift to us: we awoke in the
morning and it greeted us ! Eureka 1 Eureka !
How can you expect a sermon of such people or of
anyone mad with joy ? What does the lover say of
his sweetheart ? Does he write of her solemnly,
speaking pompously of love and its ennobling influence
on the heart of man, of its mystery and strange

INTRODUCTION II

delight ? No, if he does so he is not very much in
love. What he does is to dance and leap about, as
Saint Francis did (that perpetual convert) when he
thought of God. He is for the time an ecstatic;
and the ecstatic does not preach, he sings.

This, then, is what Thompson complains of in Cra-
shaw, the ecstasy of the convert. Crashaw wearies
Thompson by his breathless dwelling on the facts of
redemption, the means whereby it was accomplished.
Thompson comes to hear Crashaw preach on the Nati-
vity, but Crashaw leads him to the creche and kneels
before it. Thompson desires to hear a sermon on
the Atonement, but Crashaw turns and contemplates
the Crucifix ! Thompson seeks to be instructed, but
Crashaw cannot teach — he can only sing hymns. So
Crashaw is not " what people are accustomed to under-
stand " : but neither was Saint Francis. There stood
by those that said the anointing of our Lord's feet:
with the precious ointment was a wicked waste of good
ointment, but our Lord reproved them and said that
a good work was wrought upon Him, and that she
who was thus prodigal should anoint His Body against
the burial. That is just what Crashaw did — he broke
his jar of precious ointment prodigally upon the feet
of Jesus, anointing His Body against the burial.
Mary Magdalene who did this thing was also in her
sense a convert.

Let us illustrate this from the titles of Crashaw's
poems. Listen, this is how he names them. To
the Name above every Name, the Name of Jesus!
The Holy Nativity of our Lord God! The
Glorious Epiphany! Vexilla Regis: the Hymn of
the Holy Cross! Sancta Maria Dolor um: a pathe-
tical descant upon the devout plainsong of Stabat
Mater Dolorosa (a quintessentially convert touch) I
Upon the bleeding Crucifix! Upon the Body of our
Blessed Lord, Naked and Bloody! Upon the
Crown of Thorns taken down from the Head of
our Blessed Lord, all Bloody! Dies ir<B: dies

12 INTRODUCTION

ilia! — -and a host of similar ones, all precisely the
subjects which a convert would be likely to choose
should he be a poet, to praise in hymns. Be it noted
also that all the poems are hymns. If these be not
precisely what people are accustomed to understand
by religious poetry, it must be because people are
not accustomed to understand converts; it must be
because people are accustomed to homilies but not
to ecstasies; it must be in short because people are
dull and will not accustom themselves to understand
anything at all.

The truth is that the element in Crashaw that ali-
enates people's sympathy is just simply his ecstasy.
We English are not ecstatic: we suspect ecstasy of
being the pother of shallow waters. Our religion is
apt to be always vested in violet. Gold dazzles, and
white distracts us. When a gift horse is presented
to us, we instinctively look it in the mouth1, and dis-
trust the motives of the donor. ,Hence it is little to
be wondered at that Crashaw has never been popular
with his own countrymen. He is too little like us.
We would not commit ourselves to a hymn of Cra-
shaw's sort. They afflict us with an uneasy sense
of indelicacy. When we hear of Archimedes rushing
into the streets crying, " Eureka," we do not so much
rejoice in his find as blush for his nakedness. So it
is with Crashaw. We feel the man has given him-
self away : hence it is impossible wholly to approve
of him. Let him find never so much, he should have
waited to put on his clothes and then written his dis-
covery to the paper — and in Crashaw 's case the more
especially because it was a religious discovery 1

Indeed the Englishman, on looking through Cra-
shaw with gingerly fingers, is relieved to find that there
is ample reason for his disapproval. Imagine him
coming upon these much guffawed-at lines about the
Magdalene's tears :

" Two walking baths, two weeping motions,
Portable and compendious oceans."

INTRODUCTION 13

He reels I Here is something so palpably bad that
he can laugh at its author with a contented mind so
long as he lives. " Two walking baths I" — he shouts
with laughter. This indeed is not what he is accus-
tomed to understand by religious poetry — no, nor by
poetry either I And this is the man they call a great
poet I Why, I would not have written such lines my-
self I Nor would he, you may be sure.

It would of course be ridiculous to attempt to de-
fend the sense of these lines. They are truly very
laughable, but the laugh they elicit is one almost of
admiration for the author of them. Only a great
poet could have written such bad lines. And they are
strikingly illustrative of my contention about Crashaw.
In ecstasy, as S. Francis shows, the sublime and the
ridiculous are perilously near neighbours — perilously,
that is, to us who observe, not by any means to the
ecstatic. He rather welcomes the ridiculous. He
is not so self-conscious as we are, and is not so sensi-
tive about what Fr. Garrold calls his "blessed dig-
nity." It is probable that Crashaw liked those lines
and would not have changed them if you had laughed
at him. Perhaps the queen and her ladies did laugh
at him. "'Walking baths' Mr. Crashaw? Lawks,
what a notion, I protest I " But perhaps Mr. Crashaw
smiled and let his baths continue to walk. But
what nonsense, you say I The lines are absurd and
indefensible. And so they are — as poetry they are
indefensible, and possibly it is a discreditable quibble
to defend them because they are also ecstatic. But
they are ecstatic; and if you read the poem as Cra-
shaw wrote it you would not stick over its absurdity
much.

What an extraordinary speed there is in Crashaw's
stanzas. How involved they look as your eye skims the
page before it begins to read, and yet how swiftly and
musically they flow. How he plays with thoughts and
images, juggling with them half-tentatively, dwelling
on some one half-tenderly, half-humorously, discard-

14 INTRODUCTION

ing an old for a new one with almost a child's delight !
How intensely the beauty of holiness dwells in his
poems 1 There is warmth, melody, and sweetness
somewhere in them, for all the grumbling critic pro-
nounces them hard. I do not think Crashaw was
allured solely by the poetic grandeur and beauty of
the themes. Certainly I think he delighted in that,
as a poet has a right to do. I think few poets since
S. Francis have come to the themes with so much
wondering ecstasy as Crashaw, so much sheer irre-
sponsible joy in the very sound of them. Look again
at his titles. They are all full of his spirit, the spirit
of the poet who is also a convert to the Catholic
Faith ; a spirit that rejoices in the poetic grandeur of
his themes, certainly, as what poet would not, but is
deeply and passionately and tenderly full at the same
time of love and faith.

To me, indeed, in all humility, Thompson seems
in this matter wholly wrong. I cannot imagine any-
one reading Crashaw and gaining nothing of religion
from him. The objection seems protestant in Thomp-
son. Is preaching, then, the only way in which God
is to be declared? Is not sheer praise, is not light,
is not music, is not sweet odour, is not even dancing
(as the boys do before the Blessed Sacrament on Cor-
pus Christi Day in Seville), are not all these things
parts of worship ? Is it no lesson, no high inspiration,
to see a man beside himself, carried beyond himself,
by the radiant beauty of objective truth? We are
told that the very presence of a saint in the same place
with us is an inspiration. And why? Simply be-
cause in a saint we actually see, or feel, religion in
action. We do more than understand it with our
minds : we actually see it happening with our eyes I
and this is of more value than many sermons. It is
a miracle, an epiphany, a transfiguration, the spirit of
God descending like a dove. It is not what we are
accustomed to understand, truly. But may we not
be thankful that now and then things do happen which

INTRODUCTION 15

we are not accustomed to understand, but which sur-
prise us, bother us, tantalise us, o'er-crow us (as
Shakespeare has it), shake us out of our smug omni-
science and show us in action those things to which
we are exhorted in every sermon that we hear. "Love,
thou art absolute sole lord of life and death," sings
Crashaw in his most splendid hymn. " True," says
Thompson. "Show me now how!" But Crashaw
never voyaged far in this world on the other side of
that supreme discovery, for God took away his life.

Let us now, for the very sport of the thing, deal
with a few of the more frivolous objectors to our poet,
Crashaw is hyperbolical, says the weary man with the
faint surfeited smile, he is forever soaring up into the
sky shrieking like a rocket and exploding into a thou-
sand coloured stars. He overdoes the ecstatic: one
cannot keep up with him ! The weary man is quite
right. If there is a difficulty about Crashaw, it is
to keep pace with him. But the weary man implies
that the fault is Crashaw's, not his own. He means
that Crashaw should have thought of all the weary
men who were destined to get out of breath over his
poems, and have pitched them a key or two lower —
which is absurd. Most poets are for a mood, and
Crashaw is for our moments of religious ecstasy. As
for hyperbole, what is it, this terrifying word? It
means, I suppose, to use language and figures out of
proportion to the theme, or to exaggerate language
and figures to an impossible degree. But there is
no language, there are no figures, out of proportion
to Crashaw's theme : and as for exaggeration, does
not all love or ecstasy do this ? Were the Eliza-
bethans to be taken literally when they sang their
mistresses in all the colours of the rainbow? The
pitfall of hyperbole is bathos, and grievously hath Cra-
shaw tumbled into it, to be sure. But does anybody
mind a stumble or two who is leaping up steep paths
with the rarefied air of snow in his nostrils and the
dazzling white peaks everywhere around him ? I trow

16 INTRODUCTION

not; and I'm sure that Crashaw did not. What
seems bathos in great poets is often only the failure
of our mood to correspond to the exalted invitation
of the poet. I say often: I do not mean always. I
think myself that there is bathos in Crashaw's poetry,
but not in Crashaw. He, I am sure, was conscious of
none. In the high airs which he breathed when he
was writing one may often fall and never know that
one has fallen until the bruise is pointed out to one
at night. But to be in such atmospheres is worth a
bruise or two more or less; and it is only the very
poor-spirited that count them seriously against the ex-
hilaration. So the weary man whose bones are not
supple enough to go ski-ing in the snows with Crashaw
must e'en stay at home, and solace himself with point-
ing out the bruise upon us when we return. He will
be happy, and we shall not mind ; so all will be pleased.
" Lift our lean souls," prays Crashaw in one of his
poems, and it is a good prayer. He might have been
thinking of some of his critics when he wrote it— only
of course he was not.

There is another objection which, while not directed
especially at Crashaw, yet includes him ; and with this
objection it may not be uninteresting to deal shortly
here. There exists a class of person whose minds are
preyed upon night and day by the suspicion that it
is easier for Catholics to write poetry than for other
people. The Catholic vocabulary differs in many re-
spects so widely from that generally used, and is so
much of a novelty to any unaccustomed to it, that
these people feel they have grounds for suspecting
that a Catholic passes for a poet simply because he
expresses ideas, familiar enough to himself and his
co-religionists, yet strange to others, in language again
familiar to himself, but unusual to non-Catholic
readers. This suspicion moreover, they feel, fully
justifies them in taking up a very hoity-toity attitude
towards the whole class of Catholic poets, in slight-
ing them and undervaluing them, and in demanding

INTRODUCTION 17

of them some standard which, since they do not them-
selves know what it is, they are tolerably sure of never
obtaining. This class of person does exist, and is
usually found amongst highly-cultivated people. Thus
there was once a don who said, " beware of Catholic
poets : they are dangerous I " What he exactly meant
by this, none can say; but it is probable that some
notion like the one I have sketched was rankling at
the back of his mind.

Now there is more than a little reason underlying
this notion. I shall proceed to show how. It might,
indeed, be easy for a poet in the first heat of a spec-
tacular conversion to strike attitudes in verse for the
edification of uninitiated beholders, but would he im-
pose on his elders in the Faith ? Catholics are in fact
so well-used to converts that they are even the less
likely to be imposed upon by mere attitudinizing.
With Catholics, then, since they speak the same
language as the Catholic poet, must lie the power to
judge. To this there might come the retort, "you
Catholics, being a small body in England, would say
anything to recommend yourselves " — but this I ignore
as frivolous. The fact remains, therefore, that if 3
Catholic poet seems good to his own competent co-re-
ligionists, the non-Catholic world is fairly safe in re-
cognizing him as a poet. And one of the purposes
animating the promoters of this Library is to point
out to Catholics the worthy ones of their own Faith,
amongst whom Crashaw as a religious poet ranks high.
After all every poet is a convert, and a passionate
convert, to his own particular belief, be it what it
may. They all in a manner speak their own language;
and will all above a certain standard of technical
excellence (and even below it in these degenerate
days) appear good to those who understand it. To
interpret a poet, therefore, you must in a manner feel
with him. You may perhaps criticize him better if
you disagree, but you will not interpret him so truly.

There remains, then, one last hare to course; and

1 8 INTRODUCTION

with this quarry I in some part must identify myself.
But, before letting slip the hounds, it is necessary to
explain a little.

Everybody has heard of the " conceit " — a poetical
figure that implies an elaborate, ingenious, and fre-
quently a learned metaphor. To the Elizabethans the
" conceit " meant simply a thought. Thus they will
speak of a lyric as a " pretty conceited thing," mean-
ing that the thought of the poem is graceful and in-
genious. But, later, the "conceit" came to imply
a far-fetched metaphor ; and nowadays when we speak
of a poet's "conceits," we imply a certain reproach.

The poetic period to which Crashaw belongs was
especially remarkable for this form of expression.
They revelled in it. Being for the most part men of
considerable learning, and living at a time when learn-
ing of every kind was greatly in vogue, they used the
metaphor to give play to their erudite wit. They
rejoiced in recondite parallels, and fantastic similes.
They burrowed into the lore of the ages to find more
and more extraordinary metaphors wherewith to gar-
nish their verses. The thing was a kind of game with
them. They had discovered that learning could be
made use of in poetry — just as our own modern realist
poets have discovered that swear-words can be made
to rhyme — and the discovery gave to life a new gusto.
Their poems became positively encyclopaedic. Chief
amongst them in this particular stands John Donne,
and he is the greatest among them all. But Shakes-
peare is a constant offender, only he does not belong to
this period. Of the same calibre are Herbert (the
singer of mild, secluded, rural Anglicanism) Vaughan,
Traherne, and in a somewhat different degree, Cra-
shaw. They are all one in their love of the ingenious,
the elaborate, the fantastic, the unexpected, turn of
thought.

Now there are people who object to Crashaw on
this score. The "conceit" irritates them: it puts
them off, and confuses them. It seems to them trivial

INTRODUCTION 19

and unworthy. And, as I have admitted, in some part
I agree with them. I do not like the " conceit " — only
to think of Crashaw without his " conceits " is to think
of another person. The habit was part of him. In
George Eliot's magnificent novel, Middlemarch, a
girl says to her husband, " Do you know, I often wish
that you had not been a medical man." To which
the husband replies, " Don't say that, it is like saying
that you wish you had married another man I " And
this is the precise case with Crashaw. The " conceit "
is integral to his poetry. It was his poetic nature, and
he could not help it. Fancies, fragrant, fantastic,
impish, spring up beneath his tread as pansies might
have done in the wake of the Fairy Queen. Some-
times he embarrasses himself with their luxuriance.
They become a positive jungle. More fancies creep
round him from the undergrowth, more come down
to him from the trees, he is beset by them, as the
girl was by goblins in Christina Rossetti's Goblin-
market. He is like a man in a wood who looks into
a clear pool to see his own face, but has not time
to observe it because of the hordes of little odd wood-
land faces that are peeping over his shoulder. The
very heavens seem to coruscate when he gazes at
them. Can it be wondered, then, that his poems are
full of odd notions, hard at first to grasp, exasperat-
ing often when understood, illuminating sometimes,
oddly attractive just in themselves, and ingenious
always? They came to "him naturally, these teeming
multitudes of figures and fancies. They crowded upon
him, and would not be denied. So he gathered them
up in armfuls and shed them upon his pages, as a
child does rose-leaves on anything it loves. He
brought them with him, like little crouching brownies,
to surround the manger where Jesus lies. They surged
with him in sorrowing fearful confusion up the
hill of Calvary. They romp in ever-changing festoons
round his joyous themes, and force their way, in-
quisitive as brownies are, into sacred and profane

20 INTRODUCTION

places alike. Crashaw could not restrain them if he
would; they scramble under his arms, climb over his
shoulders, and will be in at whatever he gazes . After
all why should we object to them, these odd crowding
fancies of Crashaw's ? They lend a sort of gothic
effect to his poetry. They are the flying buttresses,
the gargoyles, the tooth-marks and rose-windows of
Crashaw's Temple of the Lord. Looked at from a
distance as a whole the edifice is a most sublime one,
one worthy of Him to whose honour it was raised.
The reader should not think of each one separately as
he comes upon it, but should take them quickly, even
if he does not at once understand them all. Details
can be examined at leisure when the whole structure
has been surveyed. Taken so, the odd "conceits"
and fantastic traceries need not distress him unduly.
They all fall into place, and become an attractive
feature of the whole.

Such, then, is Richard Crashaw : a true poet, a true
saint. Of his whole life there is no reproach recorded
save that he was author of the two rampantly pre-
posterous lines that I have quoted. His one error
is that he carved an occasional gargoyle a little too
freakishly. As a poet, he is difficult undoubtedly, an
acquired taste, one who demands some labour from
us in order to be appreciated. But he will well repay
any trouble that we may have to take. The fact to
remember is that he was a convert. If this be borne
in mind much that is difficult about understanding
him will be smoothed away. He was a convert, an
ecstatic and a mystic. S. Francis, that insatiable
hankerer after God's poets, would have loved him.
He was a soul after the seraphic Father's own heart.
If I had time and this were not a dignified in-
troduction I would imagine him meeting the saint;
I would picture S. Francis lurking around the house
where Crashaw was, praying behind trees that God
should give him this poet-soul to be his friend and

INTRODUCTION 21

fellow- worker. I would describe Crashaw impelled,
he knows not why, from that same house, and the
little saint meeting him with open arms. Then J
would show the poet arrayed in the rough brown habit,
his feet bare upon the stones of the road, his wallet
nearly empty, his staff in his hand, faring cheerfully
upon the way, with song in his mouth and joy in his
soul. How absurd, you say, to imagine an affinity be-
tween the 1 3th century saint and the i/th century
ex-don of Cambridge 1 But there is an affinity, and
one that it would not have taken S . Francis as long
to discover as it has me to write, albeit I am writing
quickly. S. Francis knew his men at first sight, and
he would not have mistaken Brother Richard. If
Crashaw had lived in Italy in the I3th century there
might have been no poems of Richard Crashaw for
me to descant upon; but an extra chapter or so of
the Fioretti concerning the doings of the saintly
Brother Richard of the Order of S.Francis. If S.
Francis had written religious poetry, you may depend
upon it, it would not have been what people are accus-
tomed to understand by that term. It would have
approximated much more closely to that of Richard
Crashaw, poet and saint, when he sang: —

v" Come, Love, and let us work a song,
Loud and pleasant, sweet and long;
Let lips and hearts lift high the noise
Of so just and solemn joys,
Which on His white brows this bright day
Shall hence forever bear away.

Lo, the new law of a new Lord
With a new lamb blesses the board;
The aged Pascha pleads not years,
But spies Love's dawn, and disappears.
Types yield to truths ; shades shrink away ;
And their night dies into our day.

22 INTRODUCTION

But lest that die, too, we are bid
Ever to do what He once did:
And by a mindful mystic breath,
That we may live, revive His death ;
With a well-bless'd bread and wine,
Transumed, and taught to turn divine.

Since writing the foregoing pages the pleasant task
of selecting pieces for this volume has taken me once
again to the study of Crashaw; and the effect of this
further reading has been to confirm without qualifica-
tion every word that I have said. Indeed if quali-
fication of any kind there were to be, it would take
the form of dissociating myself even from those who
may object to Crashaw on the score of his " con-
ceits." His " conceits " really do not trouble : there is
such a light of radiant sincerity about them all. They
all melt into one perfect harmony; and, in detail, are
often rather illuminating than otherwise. They force
the thought home upon me by their very quaintness,
their odd paradoxical inevitableness. Take this one
for instance, from Dies irce, dies ilia, a poem on
the Last Judgment. Crashaw is imagining the terror
of that dread day. Hark, how he foretells the panic
and sweet comfort of the just: —

O that book ! Whose leaves so bright

Will set the world in severe light.

O that Judge! Whose hand, whose eye

None can endure; yet none can fly.

Ah then, poor soul, what wilt thou say?

And to what patron choose to pray?

When stars themselves shall stagger, and

The most firm foot no more then stand.

But Thou givest leave (dread Lord) that we

Take shelter from Thyself in Thee;

And with the wings of Thine own dove

Fly to Thy sceptre of soft love.

Dear, remember in that day,

Who was the cause Thou earnest this way.

Thy sheep was stray'd; and Thou would'st be

Even lost Thyself in seeking me.

INTRODUCTION 2J

This is the very radium of religious poetry. It is
so hot that one cannot at first distinguish the sensa-
tion from that of freezing. The extremes appear to
meet in it. I have emphasized one line because it
affords an admirable example of the infinitely concen-
trated subtlety of Crashaw's manner at his best.
There is the suspicion of a " conceit " in this adorable
paradox, and yet how simple and inevitable it is !
How obvious it seems when said — yet not one in a
thousand poets could have said it thus. And then the
simple direct appealing tenderness of that word
" Dear " ! It is just like a child — when it touches us
shyly with a soft hand to urge its pleading. Yet
Thompson says that Crashaw is not really a religious
poet, and likens his poetry to Milton's Ode to the
Nativity — a thing so hard that, as Whistler said of
a rival's sea, if you were to throw a pebble into it
you would hear it rattle! Milton could write Para-
dise Lost, but it was beyond his scope to say " Dear "
like that, as far beyond as the farthest star from this
earth of ours. Indeed the more and the oftener I
read Crashaw, the greater does my indignation be-
come against those people who " are not accustomed
to understand " by religious poetry such poems as
these of Crashaw. One is tempted to ask what they
do understand by religious poetry. I should very
much enjoy a quiet chat with a representative of the
class — but I doubt whether he would. One would
almost conclude that Thompson stopped short at the
lines I quoted earlier — those about the " walking
baths " — and in the hysteria resulting from them
.created from his own imagination this monstrous class
of person !

I should place first of all Crashaw^s work, the peer-
less Hymn to S. Teresa, with its apology, and
sister-piece, The Flaming Heart. Anyone who has
not read Crashaw had better start off with them.
They cannot fail to create an appetite for more. The
man would be a stone that could read them unmoved.
They exemplify in small compass the quintessential

24 INTRODUCTION

juice of what / am accustomed to understand by re-
ligious poetry. Listen to the magnificent opening: —

" Love, thou art absolute sole lord
Of life and death I "

What a statement! It ought to begin the book.
Every Catholic should repeat it each morning when
he or she wakes, and as many times during the day
as possible. It is a line that stuns the cosmos at a
blow!

I might go on like this for a long time, taking
this wonderful poem line by line and expatiating on
each one. But I must not, because there are one
or two other poems which I want to recommend es-
pecially to my readers. There is just one other ex-
tract from these three poems — it occurs in The
Flaming Heart — to which I must draw especial
attention. Crashaw is invoking S.Teresa: —

" O thou undaunted daughter of desires !
By all thy dower of lights and fires ;
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;
By all thy lives and deaths of love;
By thy large draughts of intellectual day — "

Listen to that! Was there ever such a line? How
extraordinarily apt it is applied to this saint, pre-
eminent amongst saints for her triumphant sanity!
" By thy large draughts of intellectual day I " Shelley
would have loved the line — I wonder if he ever read it.
How masterfully it hits off the saint's manner of re-
ceiving grace! It is just as though she inhaled it in
breathing, as we do fresh air. It was as natural to her
to breathe " large draughts of intellectual day," as it
is to us to breathe ordinary oxygen. It is a magnifi-
cent line. It acts upon us itself like a large draught
of intellectual day. But every line in these poems to
S.Teresa is worth pausing over and rolling on the
tongue.

The poem on the Magdalene's tears is Crashaw at
his least good. In this poem there is certainly founda-

INTRODUCTION 25

tion for Thompson's criticisms. It is not good as a
religious poem; and indeed difficult as any kind of
a poem. It contains hosts of sparkling lines and pretty
fancies, but it lacks " argument," so to say. It does
not cohere. Taken piecemeal it contains the material
of a fine poem but as a whole it is a failure.

Dies irce, dies ilia, I have already spoken of
and quoted from. It is of the very best. Lauda
Sion Salvatorem is also of this vein. I have quoted
from it also. Both should be read; both will be
enjoyed.

Then there is that great and splendid ode on the
Sorrows of our Lady. This poem is very typical
of that peculiar quality of radiance to which I have
referred in Crashaw. Indeed it is one of the most
typical of everything that I have said about the poet.
The reader may judge for himself. In this poem
Crashaw voices what so many Christians must often
feel — that sorrow is almost the truest union with our
Lord in this world. He prays Jesus and Mary to
unite Themselves to him by sorrow. Listen: —

" Come wounds 1 Come darts !

Nail'd hands I and pierced hearts I
Come your whole selves, Sorrow's great Son and

Mother 1

Nor grudge a younger brother
Of griefs his portion, who (had all their due)
One single wound should not have left for you."

That is not the voice of one " allured to such
themes, not by their lessons, but by their poetic
grandeur and beauty "; or I am much mistaken.

Now listen to Vexilla Regis: the Hymn of the
Holy Cross: —

Look up, languishing soul 1 Lo, where the fair
Badge of thy faith calls back thy care,

And bids thee ne'er forget

Thy life is one long debt
Of love to Him, Who on this painful tree
Paid back the flesh He took for thee.

26 INTRODUCTION

But enough of this ! The poems shall speak for
themselves. I am only standing in the way. Let the
reader keep the book by him, and read the poems one
at a time, or as he feels inclined. This sounds like a
prescription, but — que voulez-vousl Crashaw is a
spiritual prescription, I assure you. However, this
is all I shall say. I shall close with an apology.

It may seem to some that I have in this essay made
a rather unjust use of Francis Thompson. Lest this
rankle in any heart, let me briefly explain my con-
duct. Thompson is such a great man that anything
he says must be worth consideration. Thus, if he
say anything wrong his error is a thousand times more
in need of correction than a lesser man's would be —
in precisely the degree that his is more marked by
others. Therefore I have in a sense made Thompson's
essay on Crashaw a kind of text for my defence of
him. If any object I am sorry, but it is certainly not
done because I cherish any antipathy to Thompson.
On the contrary I have always liked his poetry the
more because in places it is reminiscent of Crashaw.
I may finish then with Brutus's defence of his attack
on Caesar and say to my readers : " if there be any
in this assembly, any dear friend of Thompson's, to
him I say that my love to Thompson is no less than
his. If then that friend demand why I rose against
Thompson, this is my answer : not that I loved
Thompson less, but that I loved Crashaw more."

This exactly expresses my attitude, and with this
defence I stand aside and leave my readers to the
poems. i

TE DECET HYMNUS
SACRED POEMS,

COLLECTED,
CORRECTED,
AUGMENTED,

Most humbly Presented.
To

MY LADY

THE COUNTESS OF
DENBIGH

BY

Her most devoted Servant,
R. C.

In hearty acknowledgment of his immortal
obligation to her Goodness & Charity.

AT PARIS,

By PETER TARGA, Printer to the Arch-

bishope of Paris, in S . Victors street at

the golden sunne.

M.DC.LII.

28 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

TO THE NOBLEST AND BEST OF LADIES,
THE COUNTESS OF DENBIGH.

PERSUADING HER TO RESOLUTION IN RELIGION,
AND TO RENDER HERSELF WITHOUT FURTHER
DELAY INTO THE COMMUNION OF THE CATHOLIC
CHURCH.

\Non vi.

Tis not the work of force but skill

To find the way into man's will.

'Tis love alone can hearts unlock;

Who knows the Word, he needs not knock.]

What Heaven-entreated heart is this,

Stands trembling at the gate of bliss?

Holds fast the door, yet dares not venture

Fairly to open it, and enter;

Whose definition is a doubt 5

'Twixt life and death, 'twixt in and out!.

Say, ling'ring Fair I why comes the birth

Of your brave soul so slowly forth?

Plead your pretences (O you strong

In weakness!) why you choose so long 10

In labour of yourself to lie,

Nor daring quite to live nor die.

Ah ! linger not, loved soul ! a slow

And late consent was a long no;

Who grants at last, long time tried 1 5

And did his best to have denied :

What magic bolts, what mystic bars,

Maintain the will in these strange wars?

29

What fatal yet fantastic bands

Keep the free heart from its own hands? 20

So when the year takes 'cold, we see
Poor waters their own prisoners be,
Fettered, and lock'd up fast they lie
In a sad self-captivity.

The astonished Nymphs their flood's strange fate
deplore, 25

To see themselves their own severer shore.
Thou that alone canst thaw this cold,
And fetch the heart from its stronghold;
Almighty Love! end this long war,
And of a meteor make a star. 30

O fix this fair Indefinite !
And 'mongst Thy shafts of sov-reign light
Choose out that sure decisive dart
Which has the key of this close heart,
Knows all the corners of 't, and can control 35

The self-shut cabinet of an unsearch'd soul.
O let it be at last, Love's hour;
Raise this tall trophy of Thy power;
Come once the conquering way ; not to confute
But kill this rebel-word " irresolute," 40

That so, in spite of all this peevish strength
Of weakness, she may write " resolved " at length.
Unfold at length, unfold fair flower,
And use the season of Love's shower!
Meet his well-meaning wounds, wise heart I 45

And haste to drink the wholesome dart.
That healing shaft, which Heaven till now
Hath in love's quiver hid for you.
O dart of Love ! arrow of light !
O happy you, if it hit right I 50

30 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

It must not fall in vain, it must

Not mark the dry regardless dust.

Fair one, it is your fate; and brings

Eternal words upon its wings.

Meet it with wide-spread arms, and see 55

Its seat your soul's just centre be.

Disband dull fears, give faith the day;

To save your life, kill your delay.

It is Love's siege, and sure to be

Your triumph, though His victory. 60

*Tis cowardice that keeps this field,

And want of courage not to yield.

Yield then, O yield, that Love may win

The fort at last, and let life in.

Yield quickly, lest perhaps you prove 65

Death's prey, before the prize of Love.

This fort of your fair self, if't be not won,

He is repulsed indeed, but you're undone.

A HYMN

I sing the Name which none can say
But touched with interior ray:
The name of our new peace : our good :
Our bliss: and supernatural blood:
The name of all our lives and loves.
Hearken, and help, ye holy doves !
The high-born brood of Day; you bright
Candidates of blissful light,

TO THE NAME OF JESUS 31

The heirs elect of Love, whose names belong

Unto the everlasting life of song; 10

All ye wise souls, who in the wealthy breast

Of this unbounded name, build your warm nest.

Awake, my glory, Soul (if such thou be,

And that fair word at all refer to thee),

Awake and sing, 1 5

And be all wing ;

Bring hither thy whole self; and let me see
What of thy parent Heaven yet speaks in thee.

O thou art poor

Of noble powers, I see, 20

And full of nothing else but empty me :
Narrow, and low, and infinitely less
Than this great morning's mighty business.

One little world or two

(Alas ! ) will never do ; 25

We must have store.
Go, Soul, out of thyself, and seek for more.

Go and request

Great Nature for the key of her huge chest
Of Heavens, the self-involving set of spheres 30

(Which dull mortality more feels than hears) .

Then rouse the nest
Of nimble Art, and traverse round
The airy shop of soul-appeasing sound:
And beat a summons in the same 35

All-sovereign name,
To warn each several kind
And shape of sweetness, be they such

As sigh with supple wind

Or answer artful touch ; 40

32 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

That they convene and come away

To wait at the love-crowned doors of this illustrious

day.

Shall we dare this, my Soul? we'll do't and bring
No other note for 't, but the name we sing.
Wake lute and harp, and every sweet -lipped thing 45

That talks with tuneful string;
Start into life and leap with me
Into a hasty fit-tuned harmony.

Nor must you think it much

T'obey my bolder touch : 50

I have authority in Love's name to take you,
And to the work of Love this morning wake you.

Wake, in the name
Of Him Who never sleeps, all things that are,

Or, what's the same, 55

Are musical;

Answer my, call

And come along;

Help me to meditate mine immortal song.
Come, ye soft ministers of sweet sad mirth, 6p

Bring all your household-stuff of Heaven on earth;
O you, my Soul's most certain wings,
Complaining pipes, and prattling strings,

Bring all the store

Of sweets you have; and murmur that you have no
more. 65

Come, ne'er to part,

Nature and Art I
Come; and come strong,
To the conspiracy of our spacious song.

Bring all the powers of praise, 70

Your provinces of well-united worlds can raise;

TO THE NAME OF JESUS 33

Bring all your lutes and harps of Heaven and Earth;
Whate'er co-operates to the common mirth:

Vessels of vocal joys,

Or you, more noble architects of intellectual noise, 75
Cymbals of Heaven, or human spheres,
Solicitors of souls or ears;

And when you are come, with all
That you can bring or we can call :

O may you fix 80

For ever here, and mix

Yourselves into the long
And everlasting series of a deathless song ;
Mix all your many worlds above,
And loose them into one of love. 85

Cheer thee my heart 1

For thou too hast thy part
And place in the great throng
Of this unbounded all-embracing song.

Powers of my soul, be proud ! 90

And speak loud

To all the dear-bought Nations this redeeming Name,
And in the wealth of one rich word, proclaim
New similes to Nature. May it be no wrong,
Blest Heavens, to you and your superior song, 95

That we, dark sons of dust and sorrow,

A while dare borrow

The name of your delights, and our desires,
And fit it to so far inferior lyres.
Our murmurs have their music too, 100

Ye mighty Orbs, as well as you;

Nor yields the noblest nest
Of warbling Seraphim to the ears of Love,
A choicer lesson than the joyful breast

Of a poor panting turtle-dove. 105

D

34 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

And we, low worms, have leave to do

The same bright business (ye Third Heavens) with you.

Gentle spirits, do not complain I

We will have care

To keep it fair, 1 1 o

And send it back to you again.
Come, lovely Name I Appear from forth the bright

Regions of peaceful light;
Look from Thine Own illustrious home,
Fair King of names, and come : 115

Leave all Thy native glories in their gorgeous nest,
And give Thy Self a while the gracious Guest
Of humble souls, that seek to find

The hidden sweets

Which man's heart meets 120

When Thou art Master of the mind.
Come lovely Name ; Life of our hope !
Lo, we hold our hearts wide ope I
Unlock Thy cabinet of Day,
Dearest Sweet, and come away. 125

Lo, how the thirsty lands

Gasp for Thy golden showers I with long-stretch's
hands.

Lo, how the labouring Earth

That hopes to be

All Heaven by Thee, 130

Leaps at Thy birth!
The attending World, to wait Thy rise,

First turn'd to eyes;
And then, not knowing what to do,
Turn'd them to tears, and spent them too. 135

Come royal Name; and pay the expense
Of all this precious patience;

TO THE NAME OF JESUS 35

O come away

And kill the death of this delay!
O see so many worlds of barren years MC>

Melted and measured out in seas of tears :
O see the weary lids of wakeful Hope
(Love's eastern windows) all wide ope

With curtains drawn,

To catch the day-break of Thy dawn. 145

O dawn at last, long-look'd for Day !
Take Thine own wings and come away.
Lo, where aloft it comes ! It comes, among
The conduct of adoring spirits, that throng
Like diligent bees, and swarm about it. 150

O they are wise,
And know what sweets are suck'd from out it:

It is the hive,

By which they thrive,

Where all their hoard of honey lies. 155

Lo, where it comes, upon the snowy Dove's
Soft back; and brings a bosom big with loves;
Welcome to our dark world, Thou womb of Day I
Unfold thy fair conceptions, and display
The birth of our bright joys, O Thou compacted 160
Body of blessings : Spirit of souls extracted !
O dissipate Thy spicy powers,
(Cloud of condensed sweets) and break upon us

In balmy showers!

O fill our senses, and take from us 165

All force of so profane a fallacy,
To think ought sweet but that which smells of Thee I
Fair, flowery Name, in none but Thee
And Thy nectareal fragrancy,

Hourly there meets 170

An universal synod of all sweets;

36 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

By whom it is defined thus,

That no perfume

For ever shall presume

To pass for odoriferous, 175

But such alone whose sacred pedigree
Can prove itself some kin (sweet Name!) to Thee.
Sweet Name, in Thy each syllable
A thousand Blest Arabias dwell;
A thousand hills of frankincense; 180

Mountains of myrrh, and beds of spices
And ten thousand Paradises,
The soul that tastes Thee takes from thence.
How many unknown worlds there are
Of comforts, which Thou hast in keeping! 185

How many thousand mercies there
In Pity's soft lap lie a-sleeping!
Happy he who has the art

To awake them,

And to take them 1 90

Home, and lodge them in his heart.
O that it were as it was wont to be I
When Thy old friends of fire, all full of Thee,
Fought against frowns with smiles ; gave glorious chase
To persecutions; and against the face 195

Of Death and fiercest dangers, durst with brave
And sober pace, march on to meet A GRAVE.
On their bold breasts, about the world they bore

Thee,

And to the teeth of Hell stood up to teach Thee,
In centre of their inmost souls, they wore Thee ; 200
Where racks and torments strived, in vain, to reach
Thee.

TO THE NAME OF JESUS 37

Little, alas thought they
Who tore the fair breasts of Thy friends,

Their fury but made way

For Thee, and served them in Thy glorious ends. 205
What did their weapons but with wider pores
Enlarge Thy flaming-breasted lovers,

More freely to transpire

That impatient fire,

The heart that hides Thee hardly covers? 210

What did their weapons but set wide the doors
For Thee? fair, purple doors, of Love's devising;
The ruby windows which enrich'd the East
Of Thy so oft-repeated rising!

Each wound of theirs was Thy new morning, 2 1 5

And re-enthroned Thee in Thy rosy nest,
With blush of Thine Own blood Thy day adorning:
It was the wit of Love o'erflowed the bounds
Of Wrath, and made Thee way through all those

wounds.
Welcome, dear, all-adored Name! 220

For sure there is no knee

That knows not Thee:
Or, if there be such sons of shame,

Alas! what will they do

When stubborn rocks shall bow 225

And hills hang down their heaven-saluting heads

To seek for humble beds
Of dust, where in the bashful shades of Night
Next to their own low Nothing, they may lie,
And couch before the dazzling light of Thy dread

majesty. 230

They that by Love's mild dictate now

Will not adore Thee,
Shall then, with just confusion bow

And break before Thee.

38 CARMEN DE'O NOSTRO

IN THE HOLY NATIVITY OF OUR LORD GOD.

A HYMN SUNG AS BY THE SHEPHERDS.
THE HYMN

Chorus

Come, we shepherds, whose blest sight

Hath met Love's noon in Nature's night ;
Come, lift we up our loftier song,
And wake the sun that lies too long.

To all our world of well-stolen joy 5

He slept ; and dreamt of no such thing

While we found out Heaven's fairer eye,
And kissed the cradle of our King.

Tell him he rises now, too late
To show us aught worth looking at. 10

Tell him we now can show him more
Than he e'er show'd to mortal sight;

Than he himself e'er saw before,
Which to be seen needs not his light.

Tell him, Tityrus, where th' hast been, 1 5

Tell him, Thyrsis, what th' hast seen.

TITYRUS

Gloomy night embraced the place
Where the noble Infant lay.

The Babe looked up and showed His face;
In spite of darkness, it was day. 20

IN THE HOLY NATIVITY 39

It was Thy day, Sweet ! and did rise,
Not from the East, but from Thine eyes.
Chorus: It was Thy day, Sweet, etc.

THYRSIS

Winter chid aloud, and sent
The angry North to wage his wars. 25

The North forgot his fierce intent,
And left perfumes instead of scars.

By those sweet eyes' persuasive powers,
Where he meant frost, he scattered flowers.

Chorus: By those sweet eyes', etc. 30

BOTH

We saw Thee in Thy balmy nest,
Young dawn of our eternal Day I

We saw Thine eyes break from their East,
And chase the trembling shades away.

We saw Thee; and we blest the sight, 35

We saw Thee by Thine own sweet light.
Chorus: We saw Thee, etc.

TlTYRUS

Poor world (said I), what wilt thou do
To entertain this starry Stranger?

Is this the best thou canst bestow? 40

A cold, and not too cleanly, manger?

Contend, the powers of Heaven and Earth,
To fit a bed for this huge birth ?

Chorus: Contend the powers, etc.

40 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

THYRSIS

Proud world, said I, cease your contest, 45

And let the mighty Babe alone.

The phoenix builds the phoenix' nest,
Love's architecture is his own.

The Babe whose birth embraves this morn,
Made His Own bed ere He was born. 50

Chorus: The Babe whose, etc.

TlTYRUS

I saw the curled drops, soft and slow,
Come hovering o'er the place's head;

Offering their whitest sheets of snow
To furnish the fair Infant's bed; 55

Forbear, said I; be not too bold,

Your fleece is white, but 'tis too cold^

Chorus: Forbear, said I, etc.

THYRSIS

I saw the obsequious Seraphims,
Their rosy fleece of fire bestow, 60

For well they now can spare their wing,
Since Heaven itself lies here below.

Well done, said I ; but are you sure
Your down so warm, will pass for pure?

Chorus: Well done, said we, etc. 65

TlTYRUS

No, no! your King's not yet to seek
Where to repose His royal head;

See, see, how soon His new-bloom'd cheek
'Twixt's mother's breasts is gone to bed.

Sweet choice, said we I no way but so 70

Not to lie cold, yet sleep in snow.

Chorus: Sweet choice, said we, etc.

IN THE HOLY NATIVITY 41

BOTH

We saw Thee in Thy balmy nest,
Bright dawn of our eternal Day !

We saw Thine eyes break from their East, 75

And chase the trembling shades away.

We saw Thee : and we blest the sight,
We saw Thee by Thine Own sweet light.
Chorus: We saw Thee, etc.

FULL CHORUS

Welcome all wonders in one sight I 80

a sPan *

Summer in Winter, Dayln Night !
Heaven in earth, and God in man I

Great, little One! whose all-embracing birth
Lifts Earth to Heaven, stoops Heaven to Earth. 85

Welcome, though not to gold nor silk,
To more than Caesar's birthright is;

Two sister-seas of virgin-milk,
With many a rarely temper'd kiss

That breathes at once both maid and mother, 90
Warms in the one, cools in the other.

[She sings Thy tears asleep, and dips
Her kisses in Thy weeping eye;

She spreads the red leaves of Thy lips,
That in their buds yet blushing lie: 95

She 'gainst those mother-diamonds, tries
The points of her young eagle's eyes.]

Welcome, though not to those gay flies,
Gilded i' th' beams of earthly kings;

Slippery souls in smiling eyes: 100

But to poor shepherds, home-spun things;

42 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

Whose wealth's their flock; whose wit, to be
Well-read in their simplicity.

Yet when young April's husband-showers
Shall bless the fruitful Maia's bed, 105

We'll bring the first-born of her flowers
To kiss Thy feet, and crown Thy head.

To Thee, jdrgad T.amh ! Whose love must keep
The Shepherds, more than they their sheep.

To Thee, meek Majesty I soft King no

Of simple Graces and sweet Loves:

Each of us his lamb will bring,
Each his pair of silver doves :

Till burnt at last in fire of Thy fair eyes,
Ourselves become our own best sacrifice. 115

NEW YEAR'S DAY.

Rise, thou best and brightest morning 1

Rosy with a double red;
With thine own blush thy cheeks adorning,

And the dear drops this day were shed.

All the purple pride that laces 5

The crimson curtains of thy bed,
Gilds thee not with so sweet graces,

Nor sets thee in so rich a red.

Of all the fair cheek'd flowers that fill thee,

None so fair thy bosom strows, 10

As this modest maiden lily

Our sins have shamed into a rose.

NEW YEAR'S DAY 43

Bid thy golden god, the sun,

Burnish'd in his best beams rise,
Put all his red-eyed rubies on ; 15

These rubies shall put out their eyes.

Let him make poor the purple East,

Search what the world's close cabinets keep,

Rob the rich births of each bright nest

That flaming in their fair beds sleep 20

Let him embrave his own bright tresses

With a new morning made of gems;
And wear, in those his wealthy dresses,

Another day of diadems.

When he hath done all he may, 25

To make himself rich in his rise,
All will be darkness to the day

That breaks from one of these bright eyes.

And soon this sweet truth shall appear,

Dear Babe, ere many days be done: 30

The Morn shall come to meet Thee here,
And leave her own neglected sun.

Here are beauties shall bereave him

Of all his eastern paramours:
His Persian lovers all shall leave him, 35

And swear faith to Thy sweeter powers.

[Nor while they leave him shall they lose the sun,
But in thy fairest eyes find two for one.]

44

CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

IN THE GLORIOUS EPIPHANY OF OUR
LORD GOD

A HYMN SUNG AS BY THE THREE KINGS

1 King: Bright Babe, Whose awful beauties make

The morn incur a sweet mistake;

2 King: For Whom the officious Heavens devise

To disinherit the sun's rise :

3 King: Delicately to displace 5

The day, and plant it fairer in Thy face ;

1 King: O Thou born King of loves,

2 King: Of lights,

3 King: Of joys.

Chorus: Look up, sweet Babe, look up, and see 10

For love of Thee

Thus far from home

The East is come

To seek herself in Thy sweet eyes.

1 King: We who strangely went astray, 15

Lost in a bright
Meridian night,

2 King: A darkness made of too much day.

3 King: Beckon'd from far

By Thy fair star, 20

Lo, at last have found our way.
Chorus: To Thee, thou Day of Night! thou East of

West!

Lo, *we at last have found the way
To Thee the World's great universal East,
The general and indifferent Day. 25

IN THE GLORIOUS EPIPHANY 45

1 King: All-circling point I all-centring sphere I

The World's one, round, eternal year.

2 King: Whose full and all-unwrinkled face

Nor sinks nor swells with time or place ;

3 King: But every where, and every while 30

Is one consistent, solid smile.

1 King: Not vex'd and tossed

2 King: 'Twixt Spring and frost,

3 King: Nor by alternate shreds of light,

Sordidly shifting hands with shades and
Night. 35

Chorus: O Little-All! in Thy embrace

The World lies warm, and likes his place ;
Nor does his full globe fail to be
Kiss'd on both his cheeks by Thee:
Time is too narrow for Thy year, 40

Nor makes the whole World Thy half
sphere.

1 King: To Thee, to Thee

From him we flee.

2 King: From, him, whom by a more illustrious lie,

The blindness of the World did call the
eye. 45

3 King: To Him, Who by these mortal clouds hast

made

Thyself our sun, though Thine Own shade,
i King: Farewell, the World's false light!
Farewell, the white
Egypt, a long farewell to thee, 50
Bright idol, black idolatry:
The dire face of inferior blackness, kist

46 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

And courted in the pompous mask of a more
specious mist.

2 King: Farewell, farewell

The proud and misplaced gates of

hell, 55

Perch'd in the Morning's way,
And double-gilded as the doors of Day :
The deep hypocrisy of Death and Night
More desperately dark, because more
bright.

3 King: Welcome, the World's sure wayl 60

Heaven's wholesome ray.

Chorus: Welcome to us; and we

(Sweet ! ) to ourselves, in Thee.

1 King: The deathless Heir of all Thy Father's day;

2 King: Decently born! 65

Embosom'd in a much more rosy Morn :
The blushes of Thy all-unblemish'd mother,

3 King: No more that other

Aurora shall set ope
Her ruby casements, or hereafter hope 70

From mortal eyes
To meet religious welcomes at her rise.

Chorus : We (precious ones ! ) in you have won
A gentler Morn, a juster sun.

1 King: His superficial beams sun-burnt our skin; 75

2 King: But left within

3 King: The Night and Winter still of Death and

Sin.

IN THE GLORIOUS EPIPHANY

47

Chorus: Thy softer yet more certain darts

Spare our eyes, but pierce our hearts:

1 King: Therefore with his proud Persian spoils 80

2 King: We court Thy more concerning smiles.

3 King: Therefore with his disgrace

We gild the humble cheek of this chaste
place ;

Chorus: And at Thy feet pour forth his face.

1 King: The doating Nations now no more 85

Shall any day but Thine adore.

2 King: Nor (much less) shall they leave these eyes

For cheap Egyptian deities.

3 King: In whatsoe'er more sacred shape

Of ram, he-goat, or rev'rend ape; 90

Those beauteous ravishers oppress'd so sore
The too-hard tempted nations:

1 King: Never more

By wanton heifer shall be worn

2 King: A garland, or a gilded horn: 95

The altar-stall'd ox, fat Osiris now
With his fair sister cow,

3 King : Shall kick the clouds no more ; but lean and

tame,
See his horn'd face, and die for shame:

Chorus: And Mithra now shall be no name.

100

i King: No longer shall the immodest lust
Of adulterous godless dust
Fly in the face of Heaven; 2 King: as if

it were
The poor World's fault that He is fair.

48 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

3 King: Nor with perverse loves and religious
rapes 105

Revenge Thy bounties in their beauteous
shapes ;

And punish best things worst, because they
stood

Guilty of being much for them too good.

1 King: Proud sons of Death I that durst compel

Heaven itself to find them Hell: no

2 King: And by strange wit of madness wrest

From this World's East the other's West.

3 King: All idolizing worms 1 that thus could crowd

And urge their sun into Thy cloud;
Forcing His sometimes eclips'd face to be 115
A long deliquium to the light of Thee.

Chorus : Alas ! with how much heavier shade

The shamefaced lamp hung down his head,
For that one eclipse he made,
Than all those he suffered I 120

i King: For this he looked so big, and ev'ry morn
With a red face confess'd his scorn;
Or, hiding his vex'd cheeks in a hired mist,
Kept them from being so unkindly kist.
,2 King: It was for this the Day did rise 125

So oft with blubber'd eyes;
For this the Evening wept; and we ne'er
knew,

But called it dew.
3 King: This daily wrong

Silenced the morning sons, and damp'd their
song. 130

IN THE GLORIOUS EPIPHANY 49

Chorus: Nor was't our deafness, but our sins, that

thus
Long made th' harmonious orbs all mute to

uv

1 King: Time has a day in store

When this so proudly poor
And self-oppressed spark, that has so

long 135

By the love-sick World been made
Not so much their sun as shade:
Weary of this glorious wrong,
From them and from himself shall flee
For shelter to the shadow of Thy tree ; 1 40

Chorus: Proud to have gain'd this precious loss,

And changed his false crown for Thy cross.

2 King: That dark Day's clear doom shall define

Whose is the master Fire, which sun should

shine ;
That sable judgment-seat shall by new

laws 145

Decide and settle the great cause

Of controverted light :

Chorus: And Nature's wrongs rejoice to do Thee
right.

3 King: That forfeiture of Noon to Night shall

pay

All the idolatrous thefts done by this Night

of Day; 150

And the great Penitent press his own pale

lips
With an elaborate love-eclipse:

To which the low World's laws
Shall lend no cause,

E

50 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

Chorus: Save those domestic which He borrows 155
From our sins and His Own sorrows.

1 King: Three sad hours' sackcloth then shall show

to us
His penance, as our fault, conspicuous :

2 King: And He more needfully and nobly prove

The Nations' terror now than erst their
love ; i 60

3 King: Their hated loves changed into wholesome

fears :

Chorus: The shutting of His eye shall open theirs.

1 King: As by a fair-eyed fallacy of Day

Misled, before, they lost their way;

So shall they, by the seasonable fright 165

Of an unseasonable Night,

Losing it once again, stumble on true Light :

2 King: And as before His too-bright eye

Was their more blind idolatry;

So his officious blindness now shall be 1 70

Their black, but faithful perspective of Thee.

3 King: His new prodigious Night,

Their new and admirable light,

The supernatural dawn of Thy pure Day;

While wondering they 175

(The happy converts now of Him
Whom they compell'd before to be their sin)

Shall henceforth see
To kiss him only as their rod,
Whom they so long courted as God. 180

Chorus: And their best use of him they worshipped,

be
To learn of him at least, to worship Thee.

IN THE GLORIOUS EPIPHANY 51

1 King: It was their weakness woo 'd his beauty ;

But it shall be

Their wisdom now, as well as duty, 185
To enjoy his blot ; and as a large black

letter

Use it to spell Thy beauties better;
And make the Night itself their torch to

Thee.

2 King: By the oblique ambush of this close night

Couch 'd in that conscious shade 190
The right-eyed Areopagite
Shall with a vigorous guess invade
And catch Thy quick reflex ; and sharply see

On this dark ground

To descant Thee. 195

3 King: O prize of the rich Spirit I with what fierce

chase

Of his strong soul, shall he
Leap at Thy lofty face,
And seize the swift flash, in rebound
From this obsequious cloud, 200

Once call'd a sun,
Till dearly this undone;
Chorus : Till thus triumphantly tamed (O ye two

Twin-suns ! ) and taught now to negotiate
you,

1 King: Thus shall that rev'rend child of Light, 205

2 King: By being scholar first of that new Night,

Come forth great master of the mystic Day ;

3 King: And teach obscure mankind a .more close

way,

By the frugal negative light
Of a most wise and well abused Night, 2ic>
To read more legible Thine original ray ;

52 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

Chorus: And make our darkness serve Thy day;
Maintaining 'twixt Thy World and ours
A commerce of contrary powers,

A mutual trade 215

'Twixt sun and shade,
By confederate black and white,
Borrowing Day and lending Night.

1 King: Thus we, who when with all the noble

powers
That (at Thy cost) are call'd, not vainly,

ours: 220

We vow to make brave way
Upwards, and press on for the pure intelli-

gential prey;

2 King: At least to play

The amorous spies,

And peep and proffer at Thy sparkling
throne; 225

3 King: Instead of bringing in the blissful prize

And fastening on Thine eyes:
Forfeit our own
And nothing gain

But more ambitious loss at least, of
brain; 230

Chorus: Now by abased lids shall learn to be

Eagles, and shut our eyes that we may see.

THE CLOSE

[Chorus]: Therefore to Thee and Thine auspicious
ray

(Dread Sweet!) lo thus

At least by us, 235

IN THE GLORIOUS EPIPHANY 53

The delegated eye of Day

Does first his sceptre, then himself, in solemn
tribute pay.

Thus he undresses

His sacred unshorn tresses;

At Thy adored feet, thus he lays down 240

1 King: His gorgeous tire

Of flame and fire,

2 King: His glittering robe, 3 King: His sparkling;

crown ;

i King. His gold, 2 King: His myrrh, 3 King: His
frankincense ;

Chorus: To which he now has no pretence: 245

For being show'd by this Day's light, how

far

He is from sun enough to make Thy star,
His best ambition now is but to be,
Something a brighter shadow, Sweet, of

Thee.
Or on Heaven's azure forehead high to>

stand 250

Thy golden index ; with a duteous hand
Pointing us home to our own Sun,
The world's and his Hyperion.

54 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

TO THE QUEEN'S MAJESTY

[UPON HIS DEDICATING TO HER THE FOREGOING

HYMN]
MADAM,
'Mongst those long rows of crowns that gild your

race,

These royal sages sue for decent place :
The daybreak of the Nations ; their first ray,
When the dark World dawn'd into Christian Day,
And smiled i' th' Babe's bright face: the purpling

bud s

And rosy dawn of the right royal blood;
Fair first-fruits of the Lamb I sure kings in this,
They took a kingdom while they gave a kiss.
But the World's homage, scarce in these well-blown,
We read in you (rare queen) ripe and full grown. 10
For from this day's rich seed of diadems
Does rise a radiant crop of royal stems,
A golden harvest of crown'd heads, that meet
And crowd for kisses from the Lamb's white feet :
In this illustrious throng, your lofty flood 15

Swells high, fair confluence of all high-born blood:
With your bright head whole groves of sceptres bend
Their wealthy tops, and for these feet contend.
So swore the Lamb's dread Sire, and so we see't,
Crowns, and the heads they kiss, must court these

feet. 20

Fix here, fair majesty 1 may your heart ne'er miss
To reap new crowns and kingdoms from that kiss;
Nor may we miss the joy to meet in you
The aged honours of this day still new.

THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY CROSS 55

May the great time, in you, still greater be, 2 5

While all the year is your epiphany ;
While your each day's devotion duly brings
Three kingdoms to supply this day's three kings.

THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY CROSS
THE HOURS

FOR THE HOUR OF MATINS

The Versicle
LORD, by Thy sweet and saving sign I

The Responsory

Defend us from our foes and Thine.
V . Thou shalt open my lips, O Lord
R. And my mouth shall shew forth Thy praise.
V . O, God, make speed to save me. 5

R. O, Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall
be, world without end. Amen. 10

THE HYMN

The wakeful Matins haste to sing
The unknown sorrows of our King:
The Father's Word and Wisdom, made
Man for man, by man's betray'd;

56 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

The World's price set to sale, and by the bold r 5

Merchants of Death and Sin, is bought and sold :
Of His best friends (yea of Himself) forsaken;
By His worst foes (because He would) beseiged and
taken.

The Antiphon
All hail, fair tree

Whose fruit we be ! 20

What song shall raise
Thy seemly praise,
Who brought 'st to light
Life out of death, Day out of Night !

The Versicle

Lo, we adore Thee, 25

Dread LAMB! and bow thus low before Thee:

The Responsory

'Cause by the covenant of Thy cross
Thou hast saved at once the whole World's loss.

The Prayer

O Lord JESU CHRIST, Son of the living God !
interpose, I pray Thee, Thine Own precious 30
death, Thy cross and passion, betwixt my soul
and Thy judgment, now and in the hour of my
death. And vouchsafe to grant unto me Thy
grace and mercy; unto all quick and dead,
remission and rest; to Thy Church, peace and 35
concord; to us sinners, life and glory everlasting.
Who livest and reignest with the Father, in the
unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world with-
out end. Amen.

57

FOR THE HOUR OF PRIME

The Versicle

LORD, by Thy sweet and saving sign ! 40

The Responsory

Defend us from our foes and Thine.

V . Thou shalt open my lips, O Lord,

R. And my mouth shall shew forth Thy praise.

V . O God, make speed to save me.

R. O Lord, make haste to help me. 45

V. Glory be to, etc.

R. As it was in the, etc.

THE HYMN

The early prime blushes to say

She could not rise so soon, as they

Call'd Pilate up, to try if he 50

Could lend them any cruelty;

Their hands with lashes arm'd, their tongues with lies,

And loathsome spittle, blot those beauteous eyes,'

The blissful springs of joy; from whose all-cheering

ray
The fair stars fill their wakeful fires, the sun himself

drinks day. 55

The Antiphon

Victorious sigh \

That now dost shine,
Transcribed above
Into the land of light and love;

58 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

O let us twine 60

Our roots with thine

That we may rise

Upon Thy wings and reach the skies.

The Versicle
Lo, we adore Thee,

Dread Lamb ! and fall 65

Thus low before Thee.

The Responsory

'Cause by the covenant of Thy cross
Thou hast saved at once the whole World's loss.

The Prayer

O Lord JESU CHRIST, Son of the living God!
interpose, I pray Thee, Thine Own precious 70
death, Thy cross and passion, betwixt my soul
and Thy judgment, now and in the hour of my
death. And vouchsafe to grant unto me Thy
grace and mercy ; unto all quick and dead, remis-
sion and rest; to Thy Church, peace and con- 75
cord; to us sinners, life and glory everlasting.
Who livest and reignest with the Father, in the
unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without
end. Amen.

THE THIRD
The Versicle
LORD, by Thy sweet and saving sign, 80

The Responsory

Defend us from our foes and Thine.
V . Thou shalt open my lips, O Lord.
R. And my mouth shall shew forth Thy praise.

THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY CROSS 59

V . O God, make speed to save me.

R. O Lord, make haste to help me. 85

V . Glory be to, etc.

R. As it was in the, etc.

THE HYMN

The third hour's deafen'd with the cry

Of " Crucify Him, crucify."

So goes the vote (nor ask them, why ?) 90

" Live Barabbas ! and let God die."

But there is wit in wrath, and they will try

A " Hail " more cruel than their " Crucify."

For while in sport He wears a spiteful crown,

The serious showers along His decent Face run

sadly down. 95

The Antiphon

Christ when He died

Deceived the Cross;

And on Death's side

Threw all the loss.

The captive World awaked and found 100
The prisoner loose, the jailor bound.

The Versicle
Lo, we adore Thee,
Dread LAMB! and fall

Thus low before Thee.

The Responsory

'Cause by the covenant of Thy cross 105

Thou hast saved at once the whole World's loss.

60 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

The Prayer

O Lord JESU CHRIST, Son of the living God!
interpose, I pray Thee, Thine Own precious
death, Thy cross and passion, betwixt my soul
and Thy judgment, now and in the hour of my 1 10
death. And vouchsafe to grant unto me Thy
grace and mercy; unto all quick and dead,
remission and rest; to Thy Church, peace and
concord; to us sinners, life and glory everlasting.
Who livest and reignest with the Father, in the 1 1 5
unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without
end. Amen.

THE SIXTH
The Versicle
LORD, by Thy sweet and saving sign !

The Responsory

Defend us from our foes and Thine.
V , Thou shalt open my lips, O Lord, 120

R. And my mouth shall shew forth Thy praise.
V ' . O God, make speed to save me I
R. O Lord, make haste to help me!
V . Glory be to, etc.
R. As it was in the, etc. 125

THE HYMN

Now is the noon of Sorrow's night:
High in His patience, as their spite,
Lo, the faint Lamb, with weary limb
Bears that huge tree which must bear Him.
The fatal plant, so great of fame, 130

For fruit of sorrow and of shame,

THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY CROSS 61

Shall swell with both, for Him; and mix
All woes into one crucifix.
Is tortured thirst itself too sweet a cup?
Gall, and more bitter mocks, shall make it up. 135
Are nails blunt pens of superficial smart ?
Contempt and scorn can send sure wounds to search
the inmost heart.

The Antiphon

O dear and sweet dispute
'Twixt Death's and Love's far different fruit I

Different as far 140

As antidotes and poisons are.

By that first fatal tree

Both life and liberty

Were sold and slain;

By this they both look up, and live again. 145
i

The Versicle
Lo, we adore Thee,
Dread Lamb I and bow thus low before Thee.

The Responsory

'Cause by the covenant of Thy cross,
Thou hast saved the World from certain loss.

The Prayer

O Lord JESU CtfRiST, Son of the living God! i 50
interpose, I pray Thee, Thine Own precious
death, Thy cross and passion, betwixt my soul
and Thy judgment, now and in the hour of my
death. And vouchsafe to grant unto me Thy
grace and mercy; unto all quick and dead, 155
remission and rest; to Thy Church, peace and

62 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

concord; to us sinners, life and glory everlasting.
Who livest and reignest with the Father, in the
unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without
end. Amen. 160

THE NINTH

The Versicle
LORD, by Thy sweet and saving sign,

The Responsory

Defend us from our foes and Thine.
V . Thou shall open my lips, O Lord,
R. And my mouth shall shew forth Thy praise.
V . O God, make speed to save me ! 165

R . O Lord, make haste to help me !
V . Glory be to, etc.
R. As it was in the, etc.

THE HYMN

The ninth with awful horror hearkened to those groans
Which taught attention even to rocks and stones. 170
Hear, Father, hear ! thy Lamb (at last) complains
Of some more painful thing than all His pains.
Then bows His all-obedient head, and dies
His own love's, and our sins' GREAT SACRIFICE.
The sun saw that, and would have seen no more; 175
The centre shook : her useless veil th' inglorious
Temple tore I

The Antiphon
O strange, mysterious strife
Of open Death and hidden Life !
When on the cross my King did bleed,
Life seem'd to die, Death died indeed. 180

THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY CROSS 65

The Versicle

Lo, we adore Thee,
Dread Lamb 1 and fall
Thus low before Thee.

The Responsory

'Cause by the covenant of Thy cross,
Thou hast saved at once the whole World's

loss. 185

The Prayer

O Lord JESU CHRIST, Son of the living God!
interpose, I pray Thee, Thine Own precious
death, Thy cross and passion, betwixt my soul
and Thy judgment, now and in the hour of my
death. And vouchsafe to grant unto me Thy 190
grace and mercy; unto all quick and dead,
remission and rest; to Thy Church, peace and
concord; to us sinners, life and glory everlasting.
Who livest and reignest with the Father, in the
unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without 195
end. Amen.

EVEN-SONG
The Versicle
LORD, by Thy sweet and saving sign !

The Responsory

Defend us from our foes and Thine.
V. Thou shalt open my lips, O Lord!
R. And my mouth shall shew forth Thy praise . 200
V . O God, make speed to save me !
R. O Lord, make haste to help me!
V . Glory be to, etc.
R. As it was in the, etc.

64 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

THE HYMN

But there were rocks would not relent at this : 205
Lo, for their own hearts, they rend His;
Their deadly hate lives still, and hath
A wild reserve of wanton wrath;
Superfluous spear I But there's a heart stands by
Will look no wounds be lost, no death shall die. 2 10
Gather now thy Grief's ripe fruit, great mother-maid !
Then sit thee down, and sing thine even-song in the
sad tree's shade.

The Antiphon

O sad, sweet tree !

Woeful and joyful we

Both weep and sing in shade of thee. 2 1 5

When the dear nails did lock
And graft into thy gracious stock

The hope, the health

The worth, the wealth
Of all the ransomed World, thou hadst the power 220

(In that propitious hour)

To poise each precious limb/
And prove how light the World was, when it
weighed with Him.

Wide mayest thou spread

Thine arms, and with Thy bright and blissful head 225
O'erlook all Libanus. Thy lofty crown
The King Himself is ; thou His humble throne,
Where yielding and yet conquering He
Proved a new path of patient victory :
When Wondering Death by death was slain, 230
And our Captivity His captive ta'en.

THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY CROSS 65

The Versicle
Lo, we adore Thee,
Dread LAMB! and bow thus low before Thee.

The Res-ponsory

'Cause by the covenant of Thy Cross,
Thou hast saved the World from certain loss. 235

The Prayer
O Lord JESU CHRIST, Son of the living, etc.

COMPLINE
The Versicle
LORD, by Thy sweet and saving sign I

The Responsory

Defend us from our foes and Thine.
V . Thou shalt open my lips, O Lord,
R. And my mouth shall shew forth Thy praise. 240
V . O God, make speed to save me I
R. O Lord, make haste to help me!
V . Glory be to, etc.
R. As it was in the, etc.

THE HYMN

The Compline hour comes last, to call 245

Us to our own lives' funeral.
Ah, heartless task ! yet Hope takes head,
And lives in Him that here lies dead.
Run, Mary, run ! bring hither all the Blest
Arabia, for thy royal phoenix' nest; 250

Pour on thy noblest sweets, which, when they touch
This sweeter body, shall indeed be such.
But must Thy bed, Lord, be a borrowed grave,
Who lend'st to all things all the life they have?
F

66 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

O rather use this heart, thus far a fitter stone, 255
'Cause though a hard and cold one, yet it is Thine
own. Amen.

The Antiphon

O save us then,

Merciful King of men !

Since Thou wouldst needs be thus
A Saviour, and at such a rate, for us; 260

Save us, O save us, Lord.

We now will own no shorter wish, nor name a
narrower word;

Thy blood bids us be bold,

Thy wounds give us fair hold,

Thy sorrows chide our shame: 265

Thy cross, Thy nature, and Thy name

Advance our claim,

And cry with one accord,

Save them, O save them, Lord!

THE RECOMMENDATION

These hours, and that which hovers o'er my end, 270
Into Thy hands and heart, Lord, I commend,

Take both to Thine account, that I and mine,
In that hour and in these, may be all Thine.

That as I dedicate my devoutest breath

To make a kind of life for my Lord's death, 275

So from His living, and life-giving death,
My dying life may draw a new and never fleeting
breath,

VEXILLA REGIS 67

UPON THE HOLY SEPULCHRE

Here, where our Lord once laid His head,
Now the grave lies buried.

VEXILLA REGIS

THE HYMN OF THE HOLY CROSS

I

Look up, languishing soul ! Lo, where the fair
Badge of thy faith calls back thy care,

And bids thee ne'er forget

Thy life is one long debt

Of love to Him, Who on this painful tree 5

Paid back the flesh He took for thee.

II

Lo, how the streams of life, from that full nest,
Of loves, Thy Lord's too liberal breast,

Flow in an amorous flood

Of water wedding blood. 10

With these He wash'd thy stain, transferr'd thy smart,
And took it home to His own heart.

Ill

But though great Love, greedy of such sad gain,
Usurp'd the portion of thy pain,

And from the nails and spear 1 5

Turn'd the steel point of fear :

Their use is changed, not lost; and now they move
Not stings of wrath, but wounds of love.

68 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

IV

Tall tree of life I thy truth makes good

What was till now ne'er understood, 20

Though the prophetic king

Struck loud his faithful string:
It was thy wood he meant should make the throne
For a more than Solomon.

y

Large throne of Love ! royally spread 2 5

With purple of too rich a red :

Thy crime is too much duty;

Thy burthen too much beauty;
Glorious or grievous more ? thus to make good
Thy costly excellence with thy King's own blood. 30

VI

Even balance of both worlds I our world of sin,
And that of grace, Heaven weigh'd in Him :

Us with our price thou weighedst;

Our price for us thou payedst,

Soon as the right-hand scale rejoiced to prove 35
How much Death weigh'd more light than Love.

VII

Hail, our alone hope I let thy fair head shoot
Aloft, and fill the nations with thy noble fruit:

The while our hearts and we

Thus graft ourselves on thee, 40

Grow thou and they. And be thy fair increase
The sinner's pardon and the just man^s peace.

CHARITAS NIMIA 69

VIII

Live, O for ever live and reign

The Lamb Whom His own love hath slain!
And let Thy lost sheep live to inherit 45

That kingdom which this Cross did merit. Amen.

TO OUR B[LESSED] LORD UPON THE
CHOICE OF HIS SEPULCHRE

How life and death in Thee
Agree I

Thou hadst a virgin womb,

And tomb.

A Joseph did betroth

Them both.

CHARITAS NIMIA

OR, THE DEAR BARGAIN

Lord, what is man ? why should he cost Thee
So dear? what had his ruin lost Thee?
Lord, what is man, that Thou hast over-bought
So much a thing of nought ?

Love is too kind, I see; and can
Make but a simple merchant-man.
'Twas for such sorry merchandise
Bold painters have put out his eyes.

70 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

Alas, sweet Lord, what were't to Thee

If there were no such worms as we? 10

Heaven ne'ertheless still Heaven would be,

Should mankind dwell

In the deep Hell :
What have his woes to do with Thee ?

Let him go weep 15

O'er his own wounds;
Seraphim will not sleep,
Nor spheres let fall their faithful rounds.

Still would the youthful spirits sing;
And still Thy spacious palace ring; 20

Still would those beauteous ministers of light

Burn all as bright,

And bow their flaming heads before Thee;
Still thrones and dominations would adore Thee;
Still would those ever-wakeful sons of fire 25

Keep warm Thy praise

Both nights and days,
And teach Thy loved name to their noble lyre.

Let f reward dust then do its kind;

And give itself for sport to the proud wind. 30

Why should a piece of peevish clay plead shares

In the eternity of Thy old cares?

Why should'st Thou bow Thy awful breast to see

What mine own madnesses have done with me ?

Should not the king still keep his throne 35

Because some desperate fool's undone?
Or will the World's illustrious eyes
Weep for every worm that dies?

CHARITAS NIMIA 71

Will the gallant sun

E'er the less glorious run? 40

Will he hang down his golden head,
Or e'er the sooner seek his Western bed,

Because some foolish fly

Grows wanton, and will die?

If I were lost in misery, 45

What was it to Thy Heaven and Thee ?
What was it to Thy Precious Blood,
If my foul heart call'd for a flood?

What if my faithless soul and I

Would needs fall in SP

With guilt and sin ;

What did the Lamb that He should die?
What did the Lamb that He should need,
When the wolf sins, Himself to bleed?

If my base lust 55

Bargain'd with Death and well-beseeming dust:

Why should the white

Lamb's bosom write

The purple name

Of my sin's shame ? 60

Why should His unstain'd breast make good
My blushes with His own heart-blood?

O my Saviour, make me see

How dearly Thou hast paid for me ;

That lost again, my life may prove, 65

As then in death, so now in love.

72 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

SANCTA MARIA DOLORUM

OR, THE MOTHER OF SORROWS: A PATHETICAL
DESCANT UPON THE DEVOUT PLAINSONG OF
STABAT MATER DOLOROSA

In shade of Death's sad Tree

Stood doleful she.
Ah she ! now by none other
Name to be known, alas, but Sorrow's Mother.

Before her eyes 5

Hers and the whole World's joys,
Hanging all torn, she sees; and in His woes
And pains, her pangs and throes :
Each wound of His, from every part,
All, more at home in her one heart. 10

II

What kind of marble then

Is that cold man

Who can look on and see,
Nor keep such noble sorrows company ?

Sure even from you 15

(My flints) some drops are due,
To see so many unkind swords contest

So fast for one soft breast :
While with a faithful, mutual flood,
Her eyes bleed tears, His wounds weep blood. 20

SANCTA MARIA DOLORUM 73

III

O costly intercourse

Of deaths, and worse —

Divided loves. While Son and mother
Discourse alternate wounds to one another,

Quick deaths that grow 25

And gather, as they come and go :
His nails write swords in her, which soon her heart

Pays back, with more than their own smart ;
Her swords, still growing with His pain,
Turn spears, and straight come home again. 30

IV

She sees her Son, her God,

Bow with a load

Of borrow'd sins; and swim
In woes that were not made for Him.

Ah! hard command 35

Of love! Here must she stand,
Charged to look on, and with a steadfast eye

See her life die ;

Leaving her only so much breath
As serves to keep alive her death. 40

O mother turtle-dove!
Soft source of love I
That these dry lids might borrow
Something from thy full seas of sorrow !

O in that breast 45

Of thine (the noblest nest

74 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

Both of Love's fires and floods) might I recline

This hard, cold heart of mine!
The chill lump would relent, and prove
Soft subject for the siege of Love. 50

VI

O teach those wounds to bleed

In me; me, so to read

This book of loves, thus writ
In lines of death, my life may 'copy it

With loyal cares. 55

O let me, here, claim shares!
Yield something in thy sad prerogative

(Great queen of griefs I), and give
Me, too, my tears; who, though all stone,
Think much that thou shouldst mourn alone. 60

VII

Yea, let my life and me

Fix here with thee,

And at the humble foot
Of this fair tree, take our eternal root.

That so we may 65

At least be in Love's way;

And in these chaste wars, while the wing'd wounds
flee

So fast 'twixt Him and thee,
My breast may catch the kiss of some kind dart,
Though as at second hand, from either heart. 70

75
VIII

O you, your own best darts,

Dear, doleful hearts!

Hail I and strike home, and make me see
That wounded bosoms their own weapons be.

Come wounds I come darts 1 7 5

Nail'd hands ! and pierced hearts !
Come your whole selves, Sorrow's great Son and
mother I

Nor grudge a younger brother
Of griefs his portion, who (had all their due)
One single wound should not have left for you. 80

IX

Shall I [in sins] set there

So deep a share,

(Dear wounds!), and only now
In sorrows draw no dividend with you?

O be more wise, 85

If not more soft, mine eyes!
Flow, tardy founts I and into decent showers

Dissolve my days and hours.
And if thou yet (faint soul ! ) defer
To bleed with Him, fail not to weep with her. 90

x

Rich queen, lend some relief;
At least an alms of grief,
To a heart who by sad right of sin
Could prove the whole sum (too sure) due to him.

By all those stings 95

Of Love, sweet-bitter things,

76 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

Which these torn hands transcribed on thy true
heart ;

O teach mine, too, the art
To study Him so, till we mix
Wounds, and become one crucifix. 100

XI

Oh, let me suck the wine

So long of this chaste Vine,

Till drunk of the dear wounds, I be
A lost thing to the world, as it to me.

O faithful friend 105

Of me and of my end I
Fold up my life in love ; and lay't beneath

My dear Lord's vital death.

Lo, heart, thy hope's whole plea! her precious breath
Pour'd out in prayers for thee ; thy Lord's in death. 1 10

UPON THE BLEEDING CRUCIFIX

A SONG

I

Jesu, no morel It is full tide;

From Thy head and from Thy feet,
From Thy hands, and from Thy side,

All the purple rivers meet.

II

What need Thy fair head bear a part 5

In showers, as if Thine eyes had none?

What need they help to drown Thy heart,
That strives in torrents of its own ?

UPON THE BLEEDING CRUCIFIX 77

III

[Water'd by the showers they bring,

The thorns that Thy blest brow encloses 10

(A cruel and a costly spring)

Conceive proud hopes of proving roses.]

IV

Thy restless feet now cannot go

For us and our eternal good,
As they were ever wont. What though? 15

They swim, alas I in their own flood.

v
Thy hands to give Thou canst not lift;

Yet will Thy hand still giving be.
It gives, but O itself 's the gift:

It gives though bound; though bound 'tis free. 20

VI
But, O Thy side I Thy deep-digg'd side!

That hath a double Nilus going:
Nor ever was the Pharoan tide

Half so fruitful, half so flowing.

VII

No hair so small, but pays his river 25

To this Red Sea of Thy blood;
Their little channels can deliver

Something to the general flood.

VIII

But while I speak, whither are run

All the rivers named before? 30

I counted wrong: there is but one;

But O that one is one all o'er.

78 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

IX

Rain-swol'n rivers may rise proud,

Bent all to drown and overflow;
But when indeed all's overflow'd, 35

They themselves are drowned too.

This Thy blood's deluge (a dire chance,

Dear Lord, to Thee) to us is found
A deluge of deliverance;

A deluge lest we should be drown'd. 40

Ne'er wast Thou in a sense so sadly true,
The well of living waters, Lord, till now.

UPON THE CROWN OF THORNS TAKEN

DOWN FROM THE HEAD OF OUR

BLESSED LORD, ALL BLOODY

Know'st thou this, Soldier ? 'tis a much changed plant,
which yet

Thyself didst set.

[Tis changed indeed; did Autumn e'er such beauties
bring

To shame his Spring?]
Oh I who so hard a husbandman could ever find 5

A soil so kind?
Is not the soil a kind one (think ye) that returns

Roses for thorns ?

THE HYMN OF SAINT THOMAS 79

UPON THE BODY OF OUR B[LESSED]
LORD, NAKED AND BLOODY

They have left Thee naked, Lord; O that they had!

This garment too I would they had denied.
Thee with Thyself they have too richly clad;

Opening the purple wardrobe of Thy side.
O never could there be garment to[o] good 5

For Thee to wear, but this of Thine own blood.

THE HYMN OF SAINT THOMAS

IN ADORATION OF THE BLESSED SACRAMF.NT
ADORO TE

With all the powers my poor heart hath

Of humble love and loyal faith,

Thus low (my hidden life I ) I bow to Thee,

Whom too much love hath bow'd more low for me.

Down, down, proud Sense I discourses die! 5

Keep close, my soul's inquiring eye 1

Nor touch nor taste must look for more,

But each sit still in his own door.

Your ports are all superfluous here,
Save that which lets in Faith, the ear. 10

Faith is my skill; Faith can believe
As fast as Love new laws can give.
Faith is my force : Faith strength affords
To keep pace with those pow'rful words.
And words more sure, more sweet than they, 15

Love could not think, Truth could not say.

8o CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

O let Thy wretch find that relief
Thou didst afford the faithful thief.
Plead for me, Love I allege and show
That Faith has farther here to go, 20

And less to lean on : because then
Though hid as God, wounds writ Thee man;
Thomas might touch, none but might see
At least the suffering side of Thee;
And that too was Thyself which Thee did cover, 25
But here ev'n that's hid too which hides the other.

Sweet, consider then, that I,
Though allowed nor hand nor eye,
To reach at Thy loved face; nor can
Taste Thee God, or touch Thee man, 30

Both yet believe, and witness Thee
My Lord too, and my God, as loud as he.

Help, Lord, my faith, my hope increase,
And fill my portion in Thy peace :
Give love for life; nor let my days 35

Grow, but in new powers to Thy name and praise.

O dear memorial of that Death
Which lives still, and allows us breath!
Rich, royal food! Bountiful bread 1
Whose use denies us to the dead; 40

Whose vital gust alone can give
The same leave both to eat and live.
Live ever, bread of loves, and be
My life, my soul, my surer self to me.

O soft, self -wounding Pelican! 45

Whose breast weeps balm for wounded man :

LAUDA SIGN SALVATOREM 81

Ah, this way bend Thy benign flood

To a bleeding heart that gasps for blood.

That blood, whose least drops sovereign be

To wash my world of sins from me. 50

Come Love ! come Lord ! and that long day

For which I languish, come away.

When this dry soul those eyes shall see,

And drink the unseal'd source of Thee :

When Glory's sun Faith's shades shall chase, 55

And for Thy veil give me Thy face. Amen.

LAUDA SIGN SALVATOREM
THE HYMN FOR THE BL[ESSED] SACRAMENT

Rise, royal Sion I rise and sing
Thy soul's kind Shepherd, thy heart's King.
Stretch all thy powers; call if you can
Harps of heaven to hands of man.
This sovereign subject sits above 5

The best ambition of thy love.

IT

Lo, the Bread of Life, this day's
Triumphant text, provokes thy praise;
The living and life-giving bread,
To the great twelve distributed; 10

When Life, Himself, at point to die
Of love, was His Own legacy.

G

82 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

Loud and pleasant, sweet and long;

Let lips and hearts lift high the noise 15

Of so just and solemn joys,

Which on His white brows this bright day

Shall hence for ever bear away.

IV

Lo, the new law of a new Lord

With a new Lamb blesses the board : 20

The aged Pascha pleads not years,
But spies Love's dawn, and disappears.
Types yield to truths; shades shrink away;
And their Night dies into our Day.

But lest that die too, we are bid 25

Ever to do what He once did:
And by a mindful, mystic breath,
That we may live, revive His death;
With a well-bless'd bread and wine,
Transumed, and taught to turn divine. 30

VI

The Heaven-instructed house of Faith
Here a holy dictate hath,
That they but lend their form and face; —
Themselves with reverence leave their place,
Nature, and name, to be made good, 35

By a nobler bread, more needful blood.

LAUDA SIGN SALVATOREM 83

VII

Where Nature's laws no leave will give,

Bold Faith takes heart, and dares believe

In different species : name not things,

Himself to me my Saviour brings; 40

As meat in that, as drink in this,

But still in both one Christ He is.

VIII

The receiving mouth here makes

Nor wound nor breach in what he takes.

Let one, or one thousand be 45

Here dividers, single he

Bears home no less, all they no more,

Nor leave they both less than before.

IX

Though in itself this sov'reign Feast

Be all the same to every guest, 50

Yet on the same (life-meaning) Bread

The child of death eats himself dead:

Nor is't L.ove's fault, but Sin's dire skill

That thus from Life can death distil.

X

When the blest signs thou broke shalt see, 55

Hold but thy faith entire as He,

Who, howsoe'er clad, cannot come

Less than whole Christ in every crumb.

In broken forms a stable Faith

Untouch'd her precious total hath. .69

84 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

XI

Lo, the life-food of angels then

Bow'd to the lowly mouths of men !

The children's Bread, the Bridegroom's Wine,

Not to be cast to dogs or swine.

XII

Lo, the full, final Sacrifice 65

On which all figures fix'd their eyes :
The ransom'd Isaac, and his ram;
The manna, and the paschal lamb.

XIII

Jesu Master, just and true I

Our food, and faithful Shepherd tool 70

O by Thyself vouchsafe to keep,

As with Thyself Thou feed'st Thy sheep.

XIV

O let that love which thus makes Thee

Mix with our low mortality,

Lift our lean souls, and set us up 75

Convictors of Thine Own full cup,

Coheirs of saints. That so all may

Drink the same wine; and the same way:

Nor change the pasture, but the place,

To feed of Thee in Thine Own face. Amen. 80

DIES IRJE, DIES ILLA 85

DIES IR&, DIES ILLA

THE HYMN OF THE CHURCH, IN MEDITATION OF
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT

I

Hear'st thou, my soul, what serious things
Both the Psalm and Sybil sings
Of a sure Judge, from Whose sharp ray
The World in flames shall fly away?

II

O that fire I before whose face 5

Heaven and Earth shall find no place.
O those xeyes! whose angry light
Must be the day of that dread night.

Ill

O that trump ! whose blast shall run

An even round with the circling sun, 10

And urge the murmuring graves to bring

Pale mankind forth to meet his King.

IV

Horror of Nature, Hell, and Death!

When a deep groan from beneath

Shall cry, "We come, we come," and all 15

The caves of Night answer one call.

v

O that Book! whose leaves so bright
Will set the World in severe light.
O that Judge ! Whose hand, Whose eye
None can endure; yet none can fly. 20

86 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

VI

Ah then, poor soul, what wilt thou say?
And to what patron choose to pray?
When stars themselves shall stagger, and
The most firm foot no more then stand.

VII

But Thou givest leave (dread Lord I) that we 25
Take shelter from Thyself in Thee;
And with the wings of Thine Own dove
Fly to Thy sceptre of soft love.

VIII

Dear, remember in that Day

Who was the cause Thou cam'st this way. 30

Thy sheep was stray'd; and Thou would'st be
Even lost Thyself in seeking me.

IX

Shall all that labour, all that cost

Of love, and even that loss, be lost ?

And this loved soul judged worth no less 35

Than all that way and weariness?

x

Just mercy, then, Thy reck'ning be

With my Price, and not with me;

Twas paid at first with too much pain,

To be paid twice; or once, in vain. 40

XI

Mercy (my Judge), mercy I cry
With blushing cheek and bleeding eye:
The conscious colours of my sin
Are red without and pale within.

DIES IR^E, DIES ILLA 87

XII

O let Thine own soft bowels pay 45

Thyself, and so discharge that day.
If Sin can sigh, Love can forgive:
O say the word, my soul shall live!

XIII

Those mercies which Thy Mary found,

Or who Thy cross confess'd and crown'd, 50

Hope tells my heart, the same loves be

Still alive, and still for me.

XIV

Though both my prayers and tears combine,
Both worthless are; for they are mine.
But Thou Thy bounteous Self still be; 55

And show Thou art, by saving me.

XV

O when Thy last frown shall proclaim
The flocks of goats to folds of flame,
And all Thy lost sheep found shall be;
Let, " Come, ye blessed," then call me. 60

XVI

When the dread " Ite " shall divide
Those limbs of death from Thy left side;
Let those life-speaking lips command
That I inherit Thy right hand.

XVII

O hear a suppliant heart, all crusht 65

And crumbled into contrite dust.
My Hope, my Fear, my Judge, my Friend I
Take charge of me, and of my end.

88 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

Hail, most high, most humble one!

Above the world, below thy Son;

Whose blush the moon beauteously mars,

And stains the timorous light of stars.

He that made all things had not done 5

Till He had made Himself thy Son.

The whole World's host would be thy guest,

And board Himself at thy rich breast.

O boundless hospitality!

The Feast of all things feeds on thee. 10

The first Eve, mother of our Fall,
Ere she bore any one, slew all.
Of her unkind gift might we have
Th' inheritance of a hasty grave:
Quick buried in the wanton tomb 15

Of one forbidden bit,
Had not a better fruit forbidden it.
Had not thy healthful womb

The World's new eastern window been,
And given us heaven again in giving Him. 20

Thine was the rosy dawn, that spring the day
Which renders all the stars she stole away.

Let then the aged World be wise, and all
Prove nobly here unnatural :

'Tis gratitude to forget that other, 25

And call the maiden Eve their mother.

Ye redeem'd nations far and near,
Applaud your happy selves in her;
(All you to whom this love belongs)
And keep't alive with lasting songs. 30

THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN 89

Let hearts and lips speak loud and say,
Hail, door of life, and source of Day !
The door was shut, the fountain seal'd,
Yet Light was seen and Life reveal'd.
[The door was shut, yet let in day], 35

The fountain seal'd, yet life found way.

Glory to thee, great virgin's Son !
In bosom of Thy Father's Bliss.

The same to Thee, sweet Spirit ! be done ;
As ever shall be, was, and is. Amen. 40

IN THE GLORIOUS ASSUMPTION
OF OUR BLESSED LADY

THE HYMN

Hark I she is call'd, the parting hour is come;
Take thy farewell, poor World, Heaven must go

home.

A piece of heavenly earth, purer and brighter
Than the chaste stars whose choice lamps come to

light her,

While through the crystal orbs clearer than they 5
She climbs, and makes a far more Milky Way.
She's called ! Hark, how the dear immortal Dove
Sighs to his silver mate : " Rise up, my love ! "
Rise up, my fair, my spotless one!
The Winter's past, the rain is gone: 10

The Spring is come, the flowers appear,
No sweets, but thou, are wanting here.

Come away, my love I

Come away, my dove I

Cast off delay; 15

90 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

The court of Heaven is come
To wait upon thee home;
Come, come away:

The flowers appear,

Or quickly would, wert thou once here. 20

The Spring is come, or if it stay

'Tis to keep time with thy delay.

The rain is gone, except so much as we

Detain in needful tears to weep the want of thee.

The Winter's past, 25

Or if he make less haste
His answer is why she does so,
If Summer come not, how can Winter go?

Come away, come away!

The shrill winds chide, the waters weep thy stay; 30
The fountains murmur, and each loftiest tree
Bows lowest his leafy top to look for thee.

Come away, my lovel

Come away, my dove! etc.

She's call'd again. And will she go? 35

When Heaven bids come, who can say no?

Heaven calls her, and she must away,

Heaven will not, and she cannot stay.

Go then; go, glorious on the golden wings

Of the bright youth of Heaven, that sings 40

Under so sweet a burthen. Go,

Since thy dread Son will have it so :

And while thou go'st, our song and we

Will, as we may, reach after thee.

Hail, holy queen of humble hearts! 45

We in thy praise will have our parts.

[And though thy dearest looks must now give light

To none but the blest heavens, whose bright

THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN 91

Beholders, lost in sweet delight,

Feed for ever their fair sight 50

With those divinest eyes, which we

And our dark world no more shall see;

Though our poor eyes are parted so,

Yet shall our lips never let go

Thy gracious name, but to the last 55

Our loving song shall hold it fast.]

Thy precious name shall be
Thyself to us; and we

With holy care will keep it by us,

We to the last 60

Will hold it fast,

And no Assumption shall deny us.
All the sweetest showers
Of our fairest flowers

Will we strow upon it. 65

Though our sweets cannot make
It sweeter, they can take
Themselves new sweetness from it.

Maria, men and angels sing,

Maria, mother of our King. 70

Live, rosy princess, live! and may the bright

Crown of a most incomparable light

Embrace thy radiant brows. O may the best

Of everlasting joys bathe thy white breast.

Live, our chaste love, the holy mirth 75

Of Heaven; the humble pride of Earth.

Live, crown of women; queen of men;

Live, mistress of our song. And when

Our weak desires have done their best,

Sweet angels come, and sing the rest. 80

92 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

SAINT MARY MAGDALENE, OR THE
WEEPER

Lo ! where a wounded heart with bleeding eyes conspire,
Is she a flaming fountain, or a weeping fire ?

THE WEEPER

I

Hail, sister springs !

Parents of silver-footed rills !

Ever-bubbling things !

Thawing crystal I snowy hills I

Still spending, never spent ! I mean 5

Thy fair eyes, sweet Magdalene!

II

Heavens thy fair eyes be;

Heavens of ever-falling stars.

'Tis seed-time still with thee;

And stars thou sow'st, whose harvest dares 10
Promise the Earth to countershine
Whatever makes heaven's forehead fine.

Ill

But we are deceived all :

Stars indeed they are too true:

For they but seem to fall, 15

As Heaven's other spangles do;
It is not for our Earth and us,
To shine in things so precious.

SAINT MARY MAGDALENE 93

IV

Upwards thou dost weep,

Heaven's bosom drinks the gentle stream. 20

Where th' milky rivers creep,

Thine floats above, and is the cream.
Waters above th' heavens, what they be
We are taught best by thy tears and thee.

V

Every morn from hence, 25

A brisk cherub something sips,

Whose sacred influence

Adds sweetness to his sweetest lips;
Then to his music ; and his song
Tastes of this breakfast all day long. 3P

VI

Not in the Evening's eyes,

When they red with weeping are

For the Sun that dies;

Sits Sorrow with a face so fair.

Nowhere but here did ever meet 35

Sweetness so sad, sadness so sweet.

VII

When Sorrow would be seen

In her brightest majesty :

(For she is a Queen) :

Then is she dress'd by none but thee. 40

Then, and only then, she wears
Her proudest pearls; I mean, thy tears.

94 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

VIII

The dew no more will weep

The primrose's pale cheek to deck:

The dew no more will sleep 45

Nuzel'd in the lily's neck;
Much rather would it be thy tear,
And leave them both to tremble here.

IX

There's no need at all,

That the balsam-sweating bough 50

So coyly should let fall

His med'cinable tears; for now
Nature hath learnt to extract a dew
More sovereign and sweet from you.

Yet let the poor drops weep, 55

(Weeping is the ease of Woe) :
Softly let them creep,
Sad that they are vanquish'd so.
They, though to others no relief,
Balsam may be for their own grief. 60

i

XI

Such the maiden gem
By the purpling vine put on,
Peeps from her parent stem,
And blushes at the bridegroom sun.

This wat'ry blossom of thy eyne, 65

Ripe, will make the richer wine.

SAINT MARY MAGDALENE 95

XII

When some new bright guest

Takes up among the stars a room,

And Heaven will make a feast :

Angels with crystal phials come 70

And draw from these full eyes of thine,
Their Master's water, their own wine.

XIII

Golden though he be,

Golden Tagus murmurs though.

Were his way by thee, 75

Content and quiet he would go;
So much more rich would he esteem
Thy silver, than his golden stream.

XIV

Well does the May that lies

Smiling in thy cheeks, confess 80

The April in thine eyes;

Mutual sweetness they express.
No April e'er lent kinder showers,
Nor May returned more faithful flowers.

xv

O cheeks 1 Beds of chaste loves, 85

By your own showers seasonably dashed.
Eyes 1 Nests of milky doves,
In your own wells decently washed.

O wit of Lovel that thus could place

Fountain and garden in one face. 90

96 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

XVI

O sweet contest I of woes

With loves; of tears with smiles disputing!

O fair and friendly foes,

Each other kissing and confuting!
While rain and sunshine, cheeks and eyes, 95

Close in kind contrarieties.

XVII

But can these fair Floods be
Friends with the bosom-fires that fill thee?
Can so great flames agree
Eternal tears should thus distil thee? 100

O floods ! O fires I O suns ! O showers !

Mixed and made friends by Love's sweet powers.

XVIII

'Twas his well-pointed dart

That digged these wells, and dressed this wine;

And taught the wounded heart 105

The way into these weeping eyne.
Vain loves avaunt ! bold hands forbear !
The Lamb hath dipped His white foot here.

XIX

And now where'er He strays, I/

Among the Galilean mountains, 1 10

Or more unwelcome ways;
He's followed by two faithful fountains;

Two walking baths, two weeping motions,

Portable, and compendious oceans.

SAINT MARY MAGDALENE 97

XX

O thou, thy Lord's fair store ! 115

In thy so rich and rare expenses,
Even when He showed most poor
He might provoke the wealth of princes.
What Prince's wanton'st pride e'er could
Wash with silver, wipe with gold? 120

XXI

Who is that King, but He
Who call'st His crown, to be called thine,
That thus can boast to be
Waited on by a wandering mine,

A voluntary mint, that strews 125

Warm, silver showers where'er He goes ?

XXII

O precious Prodigal!

Fair spend-thrift of thyself! thy measure

(Merciless love!) is all.

Even to the last pearl in thy treasure : 130

All places, times, and objects be
Thy tears' sweet opportunity.

XXIII

Does the day-star rise?

Still thy tears do fall and fall.

Does Day close his eyes? 135

Still the fountain weeps for all.
Let Night or Day do what they will,
Thou -hast thy task: thou weepest still,

H

98 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

XXIV

Does thy song lull the air ?

Thy falling tears keep faithful time. 140

Does thy sweet-breathed prayer

Up in clouds of incense climb ?
Still at each sigh, that is, each stop,
A bead, that is, a tear, does drop.

XXV

At these thy weeping gates 145

'(Watching their watery motion),

Each winged moment waits :

Takes his tear, and gets him gone.
By thine eyes' tinct ennobled thus,
Time lays him up; he's precious. 150

XXVI

Not, " so long she lived,"

Shall thy tomb report of thee;

But, " so long she grieved " :

Thus must we date thy memory.
Others by moments, months, and years 155

Measure their ages; thou, by tears.

XXVII

So do perfumes expire,

So sigh tormented sweets, opprest

With proud unpitying fire,

Such tears the suffering rose, that's vext 160

With ungentle flames, does shed,
Sweating in a too warm bed,

SAINT MARY MAGDALENE 99

XXVIII

Say, ye bright brothers,
The fugitive sons of those fair eyes,
Your fruitful mothers! 165

What make you here ? what hopes can 'tice

You to be born? what cause can borrow

You from those nests of noble sorrow ?

XXIX

Whither away so fast ?

For sure the sordid earth r 70

Your sweetness cannot taste,
Nor does the dust deserve your birth.

Sweet, whither haste you then ? O say

Why you trip so fast away ?

XXX

We go not to seek 175

The darlings of Aurora's bed,

The rose's modest cheek,

Nor the violet's humble head.
Though the field's eyes too Weepers be,
Because they want such tears as we. 180

XXXI

Much less mean we to trace

The fortune of inferior gems,

Preferr'd to some proud face,

Or perched upon fear'd diadems:
Crown'd heads are toys. We go to meet 185

A worthy object, our Lord's feet,

CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

Foundress of the Reformation of the Discalced Carmelites,
both men and women;' a woman for angelical height
of speculation, for masculine courage of performance,
more than a woman, who yet a child outran maturity,
and durst plot a martyrdom.

Love, thou art absolute sole lord

Of life and death. To prove the. word

We'll now appeal to none of all

Those thy old soldiers, great and tall,

Ripe men of martyrdom, that could reach down 5

With strong arms their triumphant crown;

Such as could with lusty breath,

Speak loud into the face of Death

Their great Lord's glorious name, to none

Of those whose spacious bosoms spread a throne 10

For Love at large to fill ; spare blood and sweat :

And see him take a private seat,

Making his mansion in the mild

And milky soul of a soft child.

Scarce has she learnt to lisp the name 1 5

Of martyr; yet she thinks it shame
Life should so long play with that breath
Which spent can buy so brave a death.
She never undertook to know

What Death with Love should have to do; 20

Nor has she e'er yet understood
Why to show love, she should shed blood,

HYMN TO SAINT TERESA 101

Yet though she cannot tell you why,
She can love, and she can die.

Scarce has she blood enough to make 25

A guilty sword blush for her sake;
Yet has she a heart dares hope to prove i

How much less strong is Death than Love.

Be Love but there; let poor six years
Be posed with the maturest fears 30

Man trembles at, you straight shall find
Love knows no nonage, nor the mind;
Tis love, not years or limbs that can
Make the martyr, or the man.

Love touched her heart, and lo it beats 35

High, and burns with such brave heats ;
Such thirsts to die, as dares drink up
A thousand cold deaths in one cup.
Good reason; for she breathes all fire;
Her white breast heaves with strong desire 40

Of what she may, with fruitless wishes,
Seek for amongst her mother's kisses.

Since 'tis not to be had at home
She'll travel to a martyrdom.

No home for her's confesses she 45

But where she may a martyr be.

She'll to the Moors ; and trade with them
For this unvalued diadem :
She'll offer them her dearest breath,
With Christ's name in't, in change for death: 50

She'll bargain with them, and will give
Them God ; teach them how to live
In Him: or, if they this deny,
For Him she'll teach them how to die.
So shall she leave amongst them sown 55

Her Lord's blood; or at least her own.

102 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

Farewell then, all the World adieu I
Teresa is no more for you.
Farewell, all pleasures, sports, and joys
(Never till now esteemed toys) 60

[Farewell, whatever dear may be,]
Mother's arms, or father's knee:
Farewell house, and farewell home I
She's for the Moors, and martyrdom.
/ Sweet, not so fast! lo, thy fair Spouse, 65

Whom thou seek'st with so swift vows ;
Calls thee back, and bids thee come
T 'embrace a milder martyrdom.

Blest powers forbid, thy tender life
Should bleed upon a barbarous knife : 70

Or some base hand have power to rase
Thy breast's chaste cabinet, and uncase
A soul kept there so sweet: O no,
Wise Heaven will never have it so.
Thou art Love's victim ; and must die 75

A death more mystical and high :
Into Love's arms thou shalt let fall
A still-surviving funeral.
His is the dart must make the death
Whose stroke shall taste thy hallowed breath: 80
A dart thrice dipp'd in that rich flame
Which writes thy Spouse's radiant name
Upon the roof of Heaven, where aye
It shines; and with a sovereign ray
Beats bright upon the burning faces 85

Of souls which in that Name's sweet graces
Find everlasting smiles : so rare,
So spiritual, pure, and fair
Must be th' immortal instrument
Upon whose choice point shall be sent 90

HYMN TO SAINT TERESA 103

A life so loved : and that there be

Fit executioners for thee,

The fairest and first-born sons of fire,

Blest seraphim, shall leave their quire,

And turn Love's soldiers, upon thee 95

To exercise their archery.

O how oft shalt thou complain
Of a sweet and subtle pain :
Of intolerable joys;

Of a death, in which who dies too

Loves his death, and dies again,
And would for ever so be slain.
And lives, and dies ; and knows not why
To live, but that he thus may never leave to die.

How kindly will thy gentle heart 105

Kiss the sweetly-killing dart,
And close in his embraces keep
Those delicious wounds, that weep
Balsam to heal themselves with ; thus
When these thy deaths, so numerous, 1 1 o

Shall all at last die into one,
And melt thy soul's sweet mansion ;
Like a soft lump of incense, hasted
By too hot a fire, and wasted

Into perfuming clouds, so fast 1 1 5

Shalt thou exhale to Heaven at last
In a resolving sigh, and then
O what ? Ask not the tongues of men ;
Angels cannot tell; suffice

Thyself shalt feel thine own full joys, 1 20

And hold them fast for ever there,
So soon as thou shalt first appear,
The moon of maiden stars, thy white
Mistress, attended by such bright

104 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

Souls as thy shining self, shall come, 1 2 5

And in her first ranks make thee room;
Where 'mongst her snowy family
Immortal welcomes wait for thee.

O what delight, when revealed Life shall stand,
And teach thy lips Heaven with His hand; 130

On which thou now may'st to thy wishes
Heap up thy consecrated kisses.
What joys shall seize thy soul, when she,
Bending her blessed eyes on Thee,
(Those second smiles of Heaven,) shall dart 135

Her mild rays through Thy melting1 heart.

Angels, thy old friends, there shall greet thee,
Glad at their own home now to meet thee.

All thy good works which went before
And waited for thee, at the door, 140

Shall own thee there ; and all in one
Weave a constellation
Of crowns, with which the King thy Spouse
Shall build up thy triumphant brows.

All thy old woes shall now smile on thee, 145

And thy pains sit bright upon thee,
[All thy sorrows here shall shine,]
All thy sufferings be divine :
Tears shall take comfort, and turn gems,
And wrongs repent to diadems. 150

Even thy deaths shall live; and new-
Dress the soul, that erst they slew.
Thy wounds shall blush to such bright scars
As keep account of the Lamb's wars.

Those rare works where thou shalt leave writ 155
Love's noble history, with wit
Taught thee by none but Him, while here
They feed our souls, shall clothe thine there.

HYMN TO SAINT TERESA 105

Each heavenly word, by whose hid flame

Our hard hearts shall strike fire, the same 160

Shall flourish on thy brows, and be

Both fire to us and flame to thee;

Whose light shall live bright in thy face

By glory, in our hearts by grace.

Thou shalt look round about, and see 165

Thousands of crown'd souls throng to be
Themselves thy crown : sons of thy vows,
The virgin-births with which thy sovereign Spouse
Made fruitful thy fair soul. Go now
And with them all about thee, bow 170

To Him; put on (He'll say,) put on
(My rosy love) that thy rich zone
Sparkling with the sacred flames
Of thousand souls, whose happy names
Heaven keep upon thy score: (Thy bright 175

Life brought them first to kiss the light,
That kindled them to stars,) and so
Thou with the Lamb, thy Lord, shalt go,
And whereso'er He sets His white
Step's, walk with Him those ways of light, 180

Which who in death would live to see,
Must learn in life to die like thee.

io6 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

AN APOLOGY FOR THE FOREGOING HYMN

AS HAVING BEEN WRIT WHEN THE AUTHOR WAS
YET AMONG THE PROTESTANTS

Thus have I back again to thy bright name,

(Fair flood of holy fires 1 ) transfus'd the flame

I took from reading thee; 'tis to thy wrong,

I know, that in my weak and worthless song

Thou here art set to shine, where thy full day 5

Scarce dawns. O pardon, if I dare to say

Thine own dear books are guilty. For from thence

I learn'd to know that Love is eloquence.

That hopeful maxim gave me heart to try

If, what to other tongues is tuned so high, 10

Thy praise might not speak English too : forbid

(By all thy mysteries that there lie hid)

Forbid it, mighty Love I let no fond hate

Of names and words so far prejudicate.

Souls are not Spaniards too : one friendly flood 1 5

Of baptism blends them all into a blood.

Christ's faith makes but one body of all souls,

And Love's that body's soul; no law controls

Our free traffic for Heaven; we may maintain

Peace, sure, with piety, though it come from Spain. 20

What soul soe'er, in any language, can

Speak Heav'n like her's, is my soul's countryman.

O 'tis not Spanish, but 'tis Heav'n she speaks!

'Tis Heav'n that lies in ambush there, and breaks

From thence into the wondering reader's breast; 25

Who feels his warm heart fhatch'd] into a nest

THE FLAMING HEART 107

Of little eagles and young loves, Whose high
Flights scorn the lazy dust, and things that die.

There are enow whose draughts (as deep as Hell)
Drink up all Spain in sack. Let my soul swell 30
With thee, strong wine of Love; let others swim
In puddles; we will pledge this seraphim
Bowls full of richer blood than blush of grape
Was ever guilty of. Change we too our shape,
(My soul,) Some drink from men to beasts, O then 35
Drink we till we prove more, not less than men,
And turn not beasts, but angels. Let the King
Me ever into these His cellars bring,
Where flows such wine as we can have of none
But Him Who trod the wine-press all alone: 40
Wine of youth, life, and the sweet deaths of Love ;
Wine of immortal mixture ; which can prove
Its tincture from the rosy nectar; wine
That can exalt weak earth; and so refine
Our dust, that, at one draught, Mortality 45

May drink itself up, and forget to die.

THE FLAMING HEART.

UPON THE BOOK AND PICTURE OF THE SERAPHICAL
SAINT TERESA, AS SHE IS USUALLY EXPRESSED
WITH A SERAPHIM BESIDE HER

Well-meaning readers I you that come as friends,
And catch the precious name this piece pretends ;
Make not too much haste to admire
That fair-cheek'd fallacy of fire.

io8 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

That is a seraphim, they say, 5

And this the great Teresia.

Readers, be ruled by me; and make

Here a well-placed and wise mistake;

You must transpose the picture quite,

And spell it wrong to read it right; 10

Read him for her, and her for him,

And call the saint the seraphim.

Painter, what didst thou understand
To put her dart into his hand?

See, even the years and size of him 15

Shows this the mother-seraphim.
This is the mistress-flame; and duteous he
Her happy fire-works, here, comes down to see.
O most poor-spirited of men !

Had thy cold pencil kiss'd her pen, 20

Thou couldst not so unkindly err
To show us this faint shade for her.
Why, man, this speaks pure mortal frame;
And mocks with female frost Love's manly flame.
One would suspect thou meant 'st to paint 25

Some weak, inferior, woman-saint.
But had thy pale-faced purple took
Fire from the burning cheeks of that bright book,
Thou wouldst on her have heap'd up all
That could be form'd seraphical; 30

Whate'er this youth of fire wears fair,
Rosy fingers, radiant hair,
Glowing cheeks, and glist'ring wings,
All those fair and fragrant things,
But before all, that fiery dart 3 5

Had fill'd the hand of this great heart.

Do then, as equal right requires ;
Since his the blushes be, and her's the fires,

THE FLAMING HEART 109

Resume and rectify thy rude design ;

Undress thy seraphim into mine ; 4°

Redeem this injury of thy art,

Give him the veil, give her the dart.

Give him the veil, 'that he may cover
The red cheeks of a rivall'd lover;
Ashamed that our world now can show 45

Nests of new seraphims here below.

Give her the dart, for it is she
(Fair youth) shoots both thy shaft and thee;
Say, all ye wise and well-pierced hearts
That live and die amidst her darts, 5°

What is't your tasteful spirits do prove
In that rare life of her, and Love ?
Say, and bear witness. Sends she not
A seraphim at every shot ?

What magazines of immortal arms there shine I 5 5
Heaven's great artillery in each love-spun line.
Give then the dart to her who gives the flame ;
Give him the veil, who gives the shame.

But if it be the frequent fate

Of worse faults to be fortunate; 60

If all's prescription; and proud wrong
Harkens not to an humble song;
For all the gallantry of him,
Give me the suffering seraphim.

His be the bravery of all those bright things, 65
The glowing cheeks, the glistering wings;
The rosy hand, the radiant dart ;
Leave her alone the flaming heart,

Leave her that ; and thou shalt leave her
Not one loose shaft, but Love's whole quiver; 70
For in Love's field was never found
A nobler weapon than a wound.

no CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

Love's passives are his activ'st part :
The wounded is the wounding heart.
O heart I equal poise of Love's both parts, 75

Big alike with wound and darts.
Live in these conquering leaves; live all the same;
And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame.
Live here great heart; and love, and die, and kill;
And bleed, and wound; and yield and conquer
still. 80

Let this immortal life where'er it comes
Walk in a crowd of loves and martyrdoms.
Let mystic deaths wait on't ; and wise souls be
The love-slain witnesses of this life of thee.
O sweet incendiary I show here thy art, 8 5

Upon this carcass of a hard cold heart ;
Let all thy scatter'd shafts of light that play
Among the leaves of thy large books of day,
Combined against this breast at once break in
And take away from me myself and sm;i 90

This gracious robbery shall thy bounty be,
And my best fortunes such fair spoils of me.
O thou undaunted daughter of desires I
By all thy dower of lights and fires;
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove; 95

By all thy lives and deaths of love;
By thy large draughts of intellectual day,
And by thy thirsts of love more large than they;
By all thy brim-filled bowls of fierce desire,
By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire; 100

By the full kingdom of that final kiss
That seized thy parting soul, and seal'd thee His ;
By all the heav'ns thou hast in Him
(Fair sister of the seraphim I )

A SONG in

By all of Him we have in thee ; 105

Leave nothing of myself in me.
Let me so read thy life, that I
Unto all life of mine may die.

A SONG [OF DIVINE LOVE]

Lord, when the sense of Thy sweet grace
Sends up my soul to seek Thy face,
Thy blessed eyes breed such desire,
I die in Love's delicious fire.

O Love, I am thy sacrifice I
Be still triumphant, blessed eyes I
Still shine on me, fair suns ! that I
Still may behold, though still I die.

SECOND PART

Though still I die, I live again;

Still longing so to be still slain; 10

So gainful is such loss of breath;

I die even in desire of death.

Still live in me this loving strife
Of living death and dying life;

For while thou sweetly slayest me 1 5

Dead to myself, I live in Thee.

112 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

PRAYER

AN ODE WHICH WAS PREFIXED TO A LITTLE
PRAYER-BOOK GIVEN TO A YOUNG GENTLEWOMAN

Lo here a little volume, but great book I

[(Fear it not, sweet,

It is no hypocrite),
Much larger in itself than in its look.]

A nest of new-born sweets; 5

Whose native fires disdaining

To lie thus folded, and complaining

Of these ignoble sheets,

Affect more comely bands

(Fair one) from thy kind hands ; 10

And confidently look

To find the rest

Of a rich binding in your breast.
It is, in one choice handful, Heaven; and all
Heaven's royal host ; encamp'd thus small 1 5

To prove that true, Schools use to tell,
Ten thousand angels in one point can dwell.
It is Love's great artillery

_„„. Which here contracts itself, and comes to lie
Close-couched in your white bosom; and from

thence, 20

As from a snowy fortress of defence,
Against the ghostly foes to take your part,
And fortify the hold of your chaste heart.
It is an armoury of light ;
Let constant use but keep it bright, 25

PRAYER 113

You'll find it yields,
To holy hands and humble hearts,

More swords and shields
Than sin hath snares, or Hell hath darts.

Only be sure 30

The hands be pure

That hold these weapons; and the eyes
Those of turtles, chaste and true ;

Wakeful and wise :

Here is a friend shall fight for you, 3 5

Hold but this book before your heart,
Let prayer alone to play his part;
But O the heart,
That studies this high art,

Must be a sure house-keeper: 40

And yet no sleeper.
Dear soul, be strong!
Mercy will come ere long,
And bring his bosom fraught with blessings,
Flowers of never-fading graces, 45

To make immortal dressings
For worthy souls, whose wise embraces
Store up themselves for Him, Who is alone
The Spouse of virgins, and the virgin's Son.
But if the noble Bridegroom, when He come, 50

Shall find the loitering heart from home;

Leaving her chaste abode

To gad abroad

Among the gay mates of the god of flies;
To take her pleasure, and to play 5 .5

And keep the devil's holiday;
To dance [in] th' sunshine of some smiling

But beguiling
I

114 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

Sphere of sweet and sugar'd lies;

Some slippery pair, 60

Of false, perhaps as fair,
Flattering but forswearing, eyes ;
Doubtless some other heart

Will get the start

Meanwhile, and stepping in before, 65

Will take possession of that sacred store
Of hidden sweets and holy joys ;
Words which are not heard with ears
(Those tumultuous shops of noise)
Effectual whispers, whose still voice 70

The soul itself more feels than hears;
Amorous languishments, luminous trances;
Sights which are not seen with eyes;
Spiritual and soul-piercing glances,
Whose pure and subtle lightning flies 75

Home to the heart, and sets the house on fire
And melts it down in sweet desire:

Yet does not stay

To ask the windows' leave to pass that way;
Delicious deaths, soft exhalations 80

Of soul; dear and divine annihilations;

A thousand unknown rites
Of joys, and rarified delights;
An hundred thousand goods, glories, and graces;

And many a mystic thing, 85

Which the divine embraces
Of the dear Spouse of spirits, with them will bring ;

For which it is no shame
That dull mortality must not know a name.

Of all this store 90

Of blessings, and ten thousand more

PRAYER 115

(If when He come
He find the heart from home)
Doubtless He will unload
Himself some otherwhere,

95

And pour abroad

His precious sweets
On the fair soul whom first He meets.
O fair I O fortunate! O rich! O dear!

O happy and thrice-happy she, 100

Selected dove

Who'er she be,

Whose early love

With winged vows,

Makes haste to meet her morning Spouse, 105

And close with His immortal kisses.
Happy indeed who never misses
To improve that precious hour,

And every day

Seize her sweet prey, i IP

All fresh and fragrant as He rises,
Dropping with a balmy shower
A delicious dew of spices;
O let the blissful heart hold fast
Her heavenly armful; she shall taste 115

At once ten thousand paradises;

She shall have power

To rifle and deflower

The rich and roseal spring of those rare sweets,
Which with a swelling bosom there she meets: 120

Boundless and infinite —

— Bottomless treasures
Of pure inebriating pleasures.
Happy proof! she shall discover

What joy, what bliss, 125

How many heavens at once it is
To have her God become her Lover.

n6 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

TO THE SAME PARTY
COUNSEL CONCERNING HER CHOICE

Dear, Heaven designed soul!

Amongst the rest
Of suitors that besiege your maiden breast

Why may not I

My fortune try 5

And venture to speak one good word,
Not for myself, alas ! but for my dearer Lord ?
You have seen already in this lower sphere
Of froth and bubbles, what to look for here :
Say, gentle soul, what can you find 10

But painted shapes,

Peacocks and apes,

Illustrious flies,
Gilded dunghills, glorious lies;

Goodly surmises 15

And deep disguises,
Oaths of water, words of wind?
Truth bids me say 'tis time you cease to trust
Your soul to any son of dust.

Tis time you listen to a braver love, 20

Which from above
Calls you up higher
And bids you come
And choose your room
Among His own fair sons of fire; 25

Where you among

The golden throng,

TO THE SAME PARTY 117

That watches at His palace doors

May pass along,

And follow those fair stars of yours ; 30

Stars much too fair and pure to wait upon
The false^ smiles of a sublunary sun.
Sweet, let me prophesy that at last't will prove

Your wary love

Lays up his purer and more precious vows, 35

And means them for a far more worthy Spouse
Than this world of lies can give ye :
Even for Him, with Whom nor cost,
Nor love, nor labour can be lost;
Him Who never will deceive ye. 40

Let not my Lord, the mighty Lover
Of souls, disdain that I discover

The hidden art
Of His high stratagem to win your heart :

It was His heavenly art 45

Kindly to cross you

In your mistaken love;

That, at the next remove

Thence, He might toss you

And strike your troubled heart 50

Home to Himself, to hide it in His breast,

The bright ambrosial nest
Of Love, of life, and everlasting rest.

Happy mistake !

That thus shall wake 5 5

Your wise soul, never to be won
Now with a love below the sun.
Your first choice fails ; O when you choose again
May it not be amongst the sons of men !

Ii8 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

ALEXIAS

THE COMPLAINT OF THE FORSAKEN WIFE OF
SAINT ALEXIS

THE FIRST ELEGY

I, late the Roman youth's lov'd praise and pride,
Whom long none could obtain, though thousands

tried;

Lo, here am left (alas!) for my lost mate
'T embrace my tears, and kiss an unkind fate.
Sure in my early woes stars were at strife, 5

And tried to make a widow ere a wife.
Nor can I tell (and this new tears doth breed)
In what strange path my lord's fair footsteps bleed.

0 knew I where he wander'd, I should see

Some solace in my sorrow's certainty: 10

I'd send my woes in words should weep for me.
(Who knows how powerful well-writ prayers would

be?)

Sending's too slow a word ; myself would fly.
Who knows my own heart's woes so well as I ?
But how shall I steal hence ? Alexis, thou, 1 5

Ah, thou thyself, alas I hast taught me how.
/ Love too, that leads the [way,] would lend the wings
' To bear me harmless through the hardest things.
And where Love lends the wing, and leads the way,
What dangers can there be dare say me nay? 20
If I be shipwreck'd, Love shall teach to swim;
If drown 'd, sweet is the death endured for him;
The noted sea shall change his name with me;

1 'mongst the blest stars a new name shall be;

ALEXIAS 119

And sure 'where lovers make their wat'ry graves, 25
The weeping mariner will augment the waves.
For who so hard, but passing by that way
Will take acquaintance of my woes, and say,
" Here 't was the Roman maid found a hard fate, -
While through the World she sought her wand'ring
mate; 30

Here perish'd she, poor heart; Heavens, be my vows
As true to me as she was to her spouse.
O live, so rare a love 1 live I and in thoe
The too frail life of female constancy.
Farewell; and shine, fair soul, shine there above, 35
Firm in thy crown, as here fast in thy love.
There thy lost fugitive th' hast found at last:
Be happy; and forever hold him fast."

THE SECOND ELEGY

Though all the joys I had fled hence with thee,
Unkind I yet are my tears still true to me:
I'm wedded o'er again since thou art gone,
Nor couldst thou, cruel, leave me quite alone.
Alexis' widow now is Sorrow's wife; 5

With him shall I weep out my weary life.
Welcome, my sad-sweet mate ! Now have I got
At last a constant Love, that leaves me not :
Firm he, as thou art false ; nor need my cries
Thus vex the Earth and tear the [beauteous] skies. 10
For him, alas I ne'er shall I need to be
Troublesome to the world, thus, as for thee :
For thee I talk to trees; with silent groves
Expostulate my woes and much wrong'd loves;
Hills and relentless rocks, or if there be 1 5

Things that in hardness more allude to thee,

120 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

To these I talk in tears, and tell my pain,

And answer too for them in tears again.

How oft have I wept out the weary sun !

My wat'ry hour-glass hath old Time outrun. 20

O I am learned grown : poor Love and I

Have studied over all Astrology;

I'm perfect in Heaven's state, with every star

My skilful grief is grown familiar

Rise, fairest of those fires; whate'er thou be 25

Whose rosy beam shall point my sun to me,

Such as the sacred light that erst did bring

The Eastern princes to their infant King.

O rise, pure lamp, and lend thy golden ray,

That weary Love at last may find his way. 30

THE THIRD ELEGY

Rich, churlish Land, that hid'st so long in thee
My treasures ; rich, alas, by robbing me.
Needs must my miseries owe that man a spite,
Who'er he be, was the first wand'ring knight,
O had he ne'er been at that cruel cost 5

Nature's virginity had ne'er been lost;
Seas had not been rebuked by saucy oars,
But lain lock'd up safe in their sacred shores ;
Men had not spurn'd at mountains; nor made wars
With rocks, nor bold hands struck the World's strong
bars, i o

Nor lost in too large bounds, our little Rome
Full sweetly with itself had dwelt at home.
My poor Alexis then, in peaceful life,
Had under some low roof loved his plain wife;
But now, ah me I from where he has no foes 1 5

He flies, and into wilful exile goes.

ALEXIAS 121

Cruel, return, or tell the reason why

Thy dearest parents have deserved to die.

And I, what is my crime I cannot tell,

Unless it be a crime t' have loved too well. 20

If heats of holier love and high desire

Make big thy fair breast with immortal fire,

What needs my virgin lord fly thus from me,

Who only wish his virgin wife to be?

Witness, chaste Heavens! no happier vows I know 25 ;

Than to a virgin grave untouch'd to go.

Love's truest knot by Venus is not tied;

Nor do embraces only make a bride.

The queen of angels (and men chaste as you)

Was maiden-wife, and maiden-mother too. 30

Cecilia, glory of her name and blood,

With happy gain her maiden vows made good.

The lusty bridegroom made approach — " Young man,

Take heed " (said she) " take heed, Valerian I

My bosom's guard, a spirit great and strong, 35

Stands arm'd to shield me from all wanton wrong.

My chastity is sacred; and my Sleep

Wakeful, her dear vows undefiled to keep.

Pallas bears arms, forsooth ; and should there be

No fortress built for true Virginity? 40

No gaping Gorgon this : none like the rest

Of your learn'd lies. Here you'll find no such jest.

I'm yours: O were my God, my Christ so too,

I'd know no name of Love on Earth but you."

He yields, and straight baptized, obtains the grace 45

To gaze on the fair soldier's glorious face.

Both mix'd at last their blood in one rich bed

Of rosy martyrdom, twice married.

O burn our Hymen bright in such high flame,

Thy torch, terrestrial Love, has here no name. 50

122 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

How sweet the mutual yoke of man and wife,
When holy fires maintain Love's heavenly life!
But I (so help me Heaven my hopes to see),
When thousands sought my love, loved none but thee.
Still, as their vain tears my firm vows did try, 55
"Alexis, he alone is mine" (said I).
Half true, alas ! half false, proves that poor line,
Alexis is alone; but is not mine.

DESCRIPTION OF A RELIGIOUS
HOUSE AND CONDITION OF LIFE

(OUT OF BARCLAY)

No roofs of gold o'er riotous tables shining,

Whole days and suns devour'd with endless dining;

No sails of Tyrian silk proud pavements sweeping,

Nor ivory couches costlier slumbers keeping;

False lights of flaring gems; tumultuous joys; 5

Halls full of flattering men and frisking boys;

Whate'er false shows of short and slippery good

Mix the mad sons of men in mutual blood.

But walks and unshorn woods; and souls, just so

Unforced and genuine; but not shady though. 10

Our lodgings hard and homely as our fare,

That chaste and cheap, as the few clothes we wear ;

Those, coarse and negligent, as the natural locks

Of these loose groves; rough as th' unpolished rocks.

A hasty portion of prescribed sleep; 15

Obedient slumbers, that can wake and weep,

And sing, and sigh, and work, and sleep again;

Still rolling a round sphere of still-returning pain.

A RELIGIOUS HOUSE 123

Hands full of hearty labours ; pains that pay
And prize themselves; do much, that more they

may, 20

And work for work, not wages; let to-morrow's
New drops wash off the sweat of this day's sorrows.
A long and daily-dying life, which breathes
A respiration of reviving deaths.
But neither are there those ignoble stings 25

That nip the blossom of the World's best things,
And lash Earth-labouring souls.
No cruel guard of diligent cares, that keep
Crown'd woes awake, as things too wise for sleep :
But reverent discipline, and religious fear, 30

And soft obedience, find sweet biding here;
Silence, and sacred rest ; peace, and pure joys ;
Kind loves keep house, lie close, [and] make no

noise ;

And room enough for monarchs, while none swells
Beyond the kingdoms of contentful cells. 35

The self-rememb'ring soul sweetly recovers
Her kindred with the stars; not basely hovers
Below : but meditates her immortal way
Home to the original source of Light and intellectual

day.

124 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

AN EPITAPH UPON A YOUNG
MARRIED COUPLE

DEAD AND BURIED TOGETHER

To these, whom Death again did wed,

This grave's their second marriage-bed;

For though the hand of Fate could force

'Twixt soul and body, a divorce,

It could not sunder man and wife, 5

'Cause they both lived but one life.

Peace, good Reader, do not weep.

Peace, the lovers are asleep !

They, sweet turtles, folded lie

In the last knot Love could tie. 10

And though they lie as they were dead,

Their pillow stone, their sheets of lead:

(Pillow hard, and sheets not warm)

Love made the bed; they'll take no harm;

Let them sleep : let them sleep on, 1 5

Till this stormy night be gone,

Till the eternal morrow dawn;

Then the curtains will be drawn

And they wake into a light,

Whose Day shall never die in Night. 20

DEATH'S LECTURE 125

DEATH'S LECTURE AND THE FUNERAL OF
A YOUNG GENTLEMAN

Dear relics of a dislodged soul, whose lack

Makes many a mourning paper put on black!

O stay a while, ere thou draw in thy head,

And wind thyself up close in thy cold bed.

Stay but a little while, until I call 5

A summons worthy of thy funeral.

Come then, Youth, Beauty, and Blood, all ye soft

powers,

Whose silken flatteries swell a few fond hours
Into a false eternity. Come man;
Hyperbolised nothing! know thy span! 10

Take thine own measure here, down, down, and bow
Before thyself in thine idea; thou
Huge emptiness! contract thy bulk; and shrink
All thy wild circle to a point. O sink
Lower and lower yet; till thy lean size / 15

Call Heaven to look on thee with narrow eyes.
Lesser and lesser yet; till thou begin
To show a face, fit to confess thy kin,
Thy neighbourhood to Nothing!

Proud looks, and lofty eyelids, here put on 20

Yourselves in your unfeign'd reflection;
Here, gallant ladies! this unpartial glass
(Through all your painting) shows you your true face.
These death-seal'd lips are they dare give the lie
To the loud boasts of poor Mortality; 25

126 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

These curtain'd windows, this retired eye
Out-stares the lids of large-look'd Tyranny :
This posture is the brave one; this that lies
Thus low, stands up (methinks) thus, and defies
The World. All-daring dust and ashes I only you 30
Of all interpreters read Nature true.

TEMPERANCE

OF THE CHEAP PHYSICIAN, UPON THE TRANS-
LATION OF LESSIUS

Go now, and with some daring drug,

Bait thy disease, and whilst they tug,

Thou, to maintain their precious strife

Spend the dear treasures of thy life:

Go take physic, doat upon 5

Some big-named composition, —

The oraculous doctors' mystic bills,

Certain hard words made into pills;

And what at last shalt gain by these?

Only a costlier disease. 10

[Go poor man, think what shall be

Remedy 'gainst thy remedy.]

That which makes us have no need

Of physic, that's physic indeed.

Hark hither, Reader : wilt thou see 1 5

Nature her own physician be?

Wilt see a man all his own wealth,

His own music, his own health?

A man, whose sober soul can tell

How to wear her garments well? 20

TEMPERANCE 127

Her garments that upon her sit,

(As garments should do) close and fit?

A well-clothed soul, that's not oppress'd

Nor choked with what she should be dress'd?

A soul sheath'd in a crystal shrine, 25

Through which all her bright features shine?

As when a piece of wanton lawn,

A thin aerial veil, is drawn

O'er beauty's face; seeming to hide,

More sweetly shows the blushing bride: 30

A soul, whose intellectual beams

No mists do mask, no lazy steams ?

A happy soul, that all the way

To Heaven, hath a Summer's day?

Wouldst see a man whose well-warm'd blood 35

Bathes him in a genuine flood?

A man, whose tuned humours be

A seat of rarest harmony?

Wouldst see blithe looks, fresh cheeks, beguile

Age? Wouldst see December smile? 4°

Wouldst see nests of new roses grow

In a bed of rev'rend snow ?

Warm thoughts, free spirits, flattering

Winter's self into a Spring ?

In sum, wouldst see a man that can 45

Live to be old, and still a man?

Whose latest, and most leaden hours

Fall with soft wings, stuck with soft flowers

And when Life's sweet fable ends,

Soul and body part like friends: 50

No quarrels, murmurs, no delay:

A kiss, a sigh, and so away ?

This rare one, Reader, wouldst thou see,

Hark hither: and thyself be he!

128 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

HOPE
[Bv A. COWLEY]

Hope, whose weak being ruin'd is
Alike, if it succeed, or if it miss!
Whom ill or good does equally confound,
And both the horns of Fate's dilemma wound.

Vain shadow; that dost vanish quite 5

Both at full noon, and perfect night!

The stars have not a possibility

Of blessing thee.

If things then from their end we happy call,
'Tts Hope is the most hopeless thing of all. 10

Hope, thou bold taster of delight!
Who instead of doing so, devour 'st it quite.
Thou bring1 st us an estate, yet leav'st us poor
By clogging it with legacies before.

The joys which we entire should wed, 15

Come deflow'r'd virgins to our bed.

Good fortunes without gain imported be,

Such mighty custom's paid to thee.
For joy, like wine kept close, does better taste;
If it take air before his spirits waste. 20

Hope, Fortune's cheating lottery,
Where, for one prize, an hundred blanks there be.
Fond archer, Hope! who tak'st thine aim so far,
That still, or short, or wide, thine arrows are;

Thin empty cloud which tW eye deceives 25

With shapes that our own fancy gives!

CRASHAW'S ANSWER FOR HOPE 129

'A cloud, which gilt and painted now appears,

'But must drop presently in tears:
When thy false beams o'er reason's light prevail,
By ignes fatui for North stars we sail. 30

Brother of Fear, more gaily clad,
The merrier fool 0' th' two, yet quite as mad!
Sire of Repentance! child of fond desire,
That blow'st the chymic and the lover's fire,

Still leading them insensibly on, 35

With the strong witchcraft of " anon 1 "
By thee the one does changing Nature through
Her endless labyrinths pursue;
And th? other chases woman; while she goes
More ways and turns than hunted Nature knows. 40

M. COWLEY.

M. CRASHAW'S ANSWER FOR HOPE

Dear Hope I Earth's dow'ry, and Heaven's debt 1
The entity of those that are not yet.
Subtlest, but surest being! thou by whom
Our nothing has a definition !

Substantial shade! whose sweet allay 5

Blends both the noons of Night and Day:

Fates cannot find out a capacity

Of hurting thee.

From thee their lean dilemma, with blunt horn,
Shrinks as the sick moon from the wholesome

morn. 10

130 CARMEN DEO NOSTRO

Rich hope ! Love's legacy, under lock

Of Faith! — still spending, and still growing stock!

Our crown-land lies above, yet each meal brings

A seemly portion for the sons of kings.

Nor will the virgin-joys we wed 15

Come less unbroken to our bed,
Because that from the bridal cheek of Bliss,
Thou steal'st us down a distant kiss.

Hope's chaste stealth harms no more Joys maiden-
head

Than spousal rites prejudge the marriage-bed. 20

Fair Hope! our earlier Heav'n! by thee
Young time is taster to Eternity :
Thy generous wine with age grows strong, not sour,
Nor does it kill thy fruit, to smell thy flower.

Thy golden growing head never hangs down, 25

Till in the lap of Love's full noon

It falls ; and dies ! O no, it melts away

As does the dawn into the Day:
As lumps of sugar loose themselves, and twine
Their subtle essence with the soul of wine. 30

Fortune? alas, above the World's low wars
Hope walks and kicks the curl'd heads of conspiring

stars.

Her keel cuts not the waves where these winds stir,
Fortune's whole lottery is one blank to her.

[Her shafts and she fly far above, 35

And forage in the fields of light and love.]
Sweet Hope I kind cheat I fair fallacy I ^by_thee_

We are not where nor what we be,
But what and where we would be. Thus art thou
Our absent presence, and our fortune now. 40

CRASHAW'S ANSWER FOR HOPE 13 f

Faith's sister! nurse of fair desire I
Fear's antidote I a wise and well staid fire I
Temper 'twixt chill Despair, and torrid Joy!
Queen regent in young Love's minority!

Though the vext chymic vainly chases 45;

His fugitive gold through all her faces;
Though Love's more fierce, more fruitless fires
assay

One face more fugitive than all they;
True Hope's a glorious hunter, and her chase

The God of Nature in the fields of grace. 50

€32 FROM STEPS TO THE TEMPLE

FROM STEPS TO THE TEMPLE.
UPON EASTER DAY

I

Rise, Heir of fresh Eternity,
From thy virgin tomb !
Rise, mighty Man of Wonders, and Thy World with

Thee,
Thy tomb the universal East,

Nature's new womb, 5

Thy tomb, fair Immortality's perfumed nest.

II

Of all the glories make Noon gay,

This is the Morn;
This Rock buds forth the fountain of the streams

of Day :
In Joy's white annals lives this hour 10

When Life was born;

No cloud scowl on His radiant lids, no tempest
lour.

Ill
Life, by this Light's nativity,

All creatures have;

Death only by this Day's just doom is forced to die, 1 5
Nor is Death forced; for may he lie

Throned in Thy grave,
Death will on this condition be content to die.

ON A TREATISE OF CHARITY 133

ON A TREATISE OF CHARITY

Rise, then, immortal maid! Religion, rise I
Put on thyself in thine own looks : t' our eyes
Be what thy beauties, not our blots, have made thee,
Such as (ere our dark sins to dust betray'd thee)
Heaven set thee down new-dress'd; when thy bright

birth 5

Shot thee like lightning to th' astonished earth.
From th' dawn of thy fair eyelids wipe away
Dull mists and melancholy clouds : take Day
And thine own beams about thee : bring the best
Of whatso'er perfumed thy Eastern nest. 10

Girt all thy glories to thee : then sit down,
Open this book, fair Queen, and take thy crown.
These learned leaves shall vindicate to thee
Thy holiest, humblest handmaid, Charity.
She'll dress thee like thyself, set thee on high 1 5

Where thou shalt reach all hearts, command each eye.
Lo ! where I see thy off 'rings wake, and rise
From the pale dust of that strange sacrifice
Which they themselves were; each one putting on
A majesty that may beseem thy throne. 20

The holy youth of Heaven, whose golden rings
Girt round thy awful altars, with bright wings
Fanning thy fair locks (which the World believes
As much as sees) shall with these sacred leaves
Trick their tall plumes, and in that garb shall go 25
If not more glorious, more conspicuous though.

Be it enacted then

By the fair laws of thy firm-pointed pen,

God's services no longer shall put on

A sluttishness for pure religion: 30

No longer shall our Churches' frighted stones

Lie scatter'd like the burnt and martyr'd bones

Of dead Devotion; nor faint marbles weep

134 FROM STEPS TO THE TEMPLE

In their sad ruins; nor Religion keep

A melancholy mansion in those cold 35

Urns. Like God's sanctuaries they look'd of old :

Now seem they Temples consecrate to none,

Or to a new god, Desolation.

No more the hypocrite shall th' upright be

Because he's stiff, and will confess no knee: 40

While others bend their knee, no more shalt thou,

(Disdainful dust and ashes!) bend thy brow;

Nor on God's altar cast two scorching eyes

Baked in hot scorn, for a burnt sacrifice :

But '(for a lamb) thy tame and tender heart 45

New struck by Love, still trembling on his dart;

Or (for two turtle-doves) it shall suffice

To bring a pair of meek and humble eyes.

This shall from henceforth be the masculine theme

Pulpits and pens shall sweat in; to redeem 50

Virtue to action, that life-feeding flame

That keeps Religion warm; not swell a name

Of Faith ; a mountain-word, made up of air,

With those dear spoils that wont to dress the fair

And fruitful Charity's full breasts (of old), 55

Turning her out to tremble in the cold.

What can the poor hope from us, when we be

Uncharitable even to Charity?

Nor shall our zealous ones still have a fling

At that most horrible and horned thing, 60

Forsooth the Pope : by which black name they call

The Turk, the devil, Furies, Hell and all,

And something more. O he is anti-Christ :

Doubt this, and doubt (say they) that Christ is

Christ :

Why, 'tis a point of Faith. Whate'er it be, 65

I'm sure it is no point of Charity.
In sum, no longer shall our people hope,
To be a true Protestant's but to hate the Pope.

QUAERIT JESUM SUUM MARIA 135

FROM POSTHUMOUS POEMS.

LUKE 2. QUAERIT JESUM SUUM MARIA, ETC.

And is he gone whom these arms held but now?

Their hope, their vow?
Did ever grief and joy in one poor heart

So soon change part ?
He's gone ; the fair'st flower that e'er bosom dress'd, 5

My soul's sweet rest.

My womb's chaste pride is gone, my heaven-born
boy:

And where is joy?
He's gone; and his loved steps to wait upon,

My joy is gone. 10

My joys and he are gone, my grief and I

Alone must lie.
He's gone; not leaving with me, till he come,

One smile at home.
Oh, come then, bring Thy mother her lost joy: 15

Oh come, sweet boy.
Make haste and come, or e'er my grief and I

Make haste and die.
Peace, heart I the heavens are angry, all their spheres

Rival thy tears. 20

136 FROM POSTHUMOUS POEMS

I was mistaken, some fair sphere or other

Was thy blest mother.
What but the fairest heaven could own the birth

Of so fair earth?
Yet sure thou did'st lodge here ; this womb of mine 2 5

Was once call'd thine.
Oft have these arms thy cradle envied,

Beguiled thy bed.
Oft to thy easy ears hath this shrill tongue

Trembled and sung. 30

Oft have I wrapt thy slumbers in soft airs,

And strok'd thy cares.
Oft hath this hand those silken casements kept,

While their suns slept.
Oft have my hungry kisses made thine eyes 35

Too early rise.
Oft have I spoil'd my kisses' daintiest diet,

To spare thy quiet.
Oft from this breast to thine my love-tossed heart

Hath leapt, to part. .40

Oft my lost soul have I been glad to seek

On thy soft cheek.
Oft have these arms, alas, show'd to these eyes

Their now lost joys.
Dawn then to me, thou morn of mine own day, 45

And let heaven stay.
Oh, would'st thou here still fix thy fair abode,

My bosom God :
What hinders but my bosom still might be

Thy heaven to Thee? 5°

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CRASHA.W, RICHARD.
Religions poems.